Wehner: Social Cons Should Attend CPAC
Peter Wehner writes:
As reported in various outlets, several groups — including the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America — are boycotting the 2011 Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference because CPAC is allowing GOProud, a conservative gay-rights organization, to be a sponsoring organization (one of more than 70). This strikes me as a bad idea on several levels.
As Ed Morrissey points out, CPAC brings together a variety of conservative groups holding different beliefs. They include libertarians, social conservatives, internationalists, isolationists, atheists, religious believers, and more. The point isn’t to determine a platform that conservatives must embrace; it is to engage in a debate about the merits of various issues. That should include those who embrace repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and same-sex marriage. Like it or not, those issues are part of the public conversation; they should therefore be engaged in a serious, thoughtful manner. Boycotting conferences to express moral disapproval won’t accomplish anything useful.
