#goproud

Republicans Kiss the Gays Goodbye as GOProud Closes Up Shop

The GOP LGBT organization GOProud, is shutting down, its members leaving the organization, and in many cases, the party itself.

Stockholm Syndrome has ended for yet another entity. After GOProud founder Jimmy LaSalvia quit the organization and left the Republican Party last year for their intolerant views, the organization as a whole is now packing up and leaving town. Yes, the gays are now free…

GOProud, a Republican LGBT organization with a not-so-great reputation in LGBT spaces, has officially shut down.

In its five years, GOProud has alienated its potential LGBT base, failed to establish any real relationship with the Republican Party, and fostered a strange obsession with the universally loathed Ann Coulter. Rumors had circulated since Sunday that the group was ceasing operations.

"The fact is, in order to continue promoting the conservative principles upon which this organization was founded, change is needed," Bechstein wrote in an email to Bilerico." One of the changes under discussion is a switch to a different legal type of organization — basic paperwork that requires dissolution and immediate subsequent reorganization. Technically, as some argue, this would be a legal closure. … But if it were to actually happen, it would only be momentary and certainly not the end of our organization."

Bilerico, however, reports that the government requirement Bechstein cites does not actually exist, explaining that the group is being dissolved and will have to file entirely new paperwork if it reorganizes as a different entity. If, as Bechstein contends, the group intends to focus on grassroots online activism, it would not be required to file legal paperwork, but if it accepts financial donations, it will be required to formally register with the government, according to Browning.