Turns out CPAC isn't quite the place for insane jeremiads against homosexuality.
During a lightning round of two-minute speeches by young activists, Ryan Sorba, of the Young Conservatives of California, decided to bash CPAC organizers for inviting GOProud (a gay Republican group that's splintered from the Log Cabin Republicans) to have a booth at the event.
His rant began:
I'd like to condemn CPAC for bringing GOPride [sic] to this event. Civil rights are grounded in natural rights. Natural rights are grounded in human nature. Human nature is a rational substance in relationship to the intelligible end of the reproductive act of reproduction. Do you understand that?
But then the crowd began to boo, and shout back at him. ("Ron Paul!" was the loudest shout in the part of the ballroom where I'm sitting; he was due to speak not long after the lightning round ended.) And Sorba -- who's the author of a book called "The Born Gay Hoax," and whose speech at Smith College was shut down by protests two years ago -- got angry.
Civil rights when they conflict with natural rights are contrary... Will you sit down? The lesbians at Smith College protest better than you do. The lesbians at Smith College protest better than you do.
One conservative activist, Jeff Frazee of Young Americans for Liberty, shouted something trying to defend GOProud. (UPDATE: Frazee contacted Salon later Friday night to say he never said anything to Sorba, and was just sitting in the second row when Sorba started yelling at him. He says he figured Sorba could see him, and thought he was the source of the boos.) Sorba snapped back:
Guess what? You just made an enemy out of me, buddy.
Watch the video here, courtesy of Media Matters for America:
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