At the Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend, controversy about the political group GOProud broke out during one of the conference panels, according to several AU students who attended.
GOProud emerged this year as a group for gay conservatives founded by the former Log Cabin Republicans.
Ryan Sorba of California Young Americans for Freedom, spoke out against CPAC during the "Two-Minute Activist: Saving Freedom Across the Nation" panel for inviting GOProud to the conference.
Sorba said his comments were a response to praise for extending the invitation to the group from Alexander McCobin, a current Ph.D. student at Georgetown University who co-founded Students for Liberty.
Michael Morgante, a freshman in the School of Public Affairs, was at the panel and said that Sorba met with boos from the audience.
Sorba said that homosexuality was unnatural and that homosexuals did not merit civil rights.
"Civil rights are grounded in natural rights," Sorba said in his speech. "Natural rights are grounded in human nature ... The intelligible end to the reproductive act is reproduction."
Stephen Laudone, a junior in the School of Public Affairs, also attended the event and said that this statement intensified the audience's response.
"I think the reaction from the audience reflects society's opinion as a whole, which is one of respect for homosexuals regardless of whether or not you agree with the issue or lifestyle," Laudone said. "People must remember that CPAC attracts a younger crowd overall from the East Coast."
While the audience at CPAC exhibited a dislike for intolerance on the issue of gay people, Morgante said he does not think that the Republican platform regarding gays is likely to change in the near future.
"When you take into account the 35 to 40 million evangelicals and their children, changing the social platform to appeal to the young vote suddenly seems like less of a good idea, especially when they rarely come out to vote from year to year," Morgante said.
Alex Knepper, a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs and a columnist for The Eagle, confronted Sorba about his comments. Knepper, an openly gay conservative, refused to shake Sorba's hand.
In response, Sorba said, "Well, I don't really want to shake your hand — you're intrinsically evil," according to Knepper's recount of the conflict in a blog he wrote for Race42012.
In his FrumForum blog, Knepper accused Sorba of being a closeted gay himself and said that Sorba wants to deprive the gay community from an important part of human nature.
"Even assuming Sorba is right, he hasn't a clue how to go about reversing homosexuality," Knepper wrote on his FrumForum blog.
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