We're so close I can taste it.

[Trigger warning for homophobia]

In case you've been blissfully unaware of the latest US political news, today is the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. In a nutshell, it's sorta like a huge party for 11,000 people, only with political speeches instead of a bouncy house, and hatred instead of fruit punch. If only I lived in DC and was invited.

Also, you may have also heard of GOProud, a group of gay conservatives that's making waves by co-sponsoring CPAC. :yawn:

According to CNN's John Avalon this changes everything. :magician hands:

Avalon's wife is on the board of GOProud (shall I assume she's B, T, and/or Q?), and he wants you to know that:

"America has been going through a gay civil rights movement for more than a decade. One measure of its success is that it has finally reached the Republican Party."

Technically Avalon's correct-- America has been "going through" (ewww?) a "gay civil rights movement" for more than a decade. But this second point? No.

The fact that the Republican Party is willing to take some gay people's money in exchange for their supporting most of its platform is not a measure of "the" gay rights movement's success. See also: the history of social justice movements, and the 'good' <$subsetofoppressedgroup>.

Avalon also claims that social conservatives' use of Reagan in distancing their movement from gay Republicans is "ironic", because Reagan was totes cool with the gays. His evidence of this is that Reagan campaigned against Anita Bryant's Prop 6 (oh, look who's been watching Milk!).

Um, first, that's about the lowest bar you can set for being down with the gays, particularly given that Prop 6 would have been a massive headache for Reagan's state of California to enforce. And, um, second? No. Reagan was not a friend of the gays. Not at all. Never. Never. Never. I mean, I guess he was one of those Hollywood actor types and was therefore a secret lefty, but no. Not. At. All.

While I'm on the subject, Sady has a great post up that nicely ties into my point that the 'good gays' are probably not going to be the most 'effective' folks to lead us to equality and justice.