Gay Republican group GOProud said today that “Speaker Gingrich said absolutely nothing wrong” when he told a gay voter he’d be better off supporting President Obama’s reelection. Both GOProud and the Log Cabin Republicans insist that the liberal press is misrepresenting Gingrich’s comments, but in doing so they’ve conceded that supporting LGBT equality is not among their top priorities:

GOPROUD: The liberal press is at it again, attempting to mischaracterize the words of a Republican Presidential candidate. Speaker Gingrich said absolutely nothing wrong in his exchange with the gay Iowa voter… Speaker Gingrich handled himself with class and dignity in this discussion with the gay voter and the press reports that have reported otherwise have done a real disservice to the truth.

LOG CABIN REPUBLICANS: In this political climate, the door is wide open for a strong Republican candidate to win the support of conservatives, independents and disillusioned Democrats – and there are those who are working hard to paint any and all Republicans as bigoted in a fear-mongering effort to shore up the president’s base. That is unfair and highly unfortunate for our community.

Gingrich’s point was that it’s “perfectly legitimate” that voters who are primarily concerned with LGBT equality should support Obama, not Gingrich or one of the other Republican candidates. By rushing to defend his positions on “job creation, national security and a better future,” these groups are admitting that the dignity of LGBT people is not their primary concern. If it were, they might have made at least one reference to Gingrich’s numerous anti-gay positions, proposals, and statements that should more than justify concern from all voters, conservative or otherwise. Apparently, voters who care about their own ability to live, love, and work without fear of discrimination do “a real disservice to the truth” by refusing to “judge each character fairly.”

Watch the exchange between Gingrich and the voter:

Last night, Stephen Hill, who is serving in the Army in Iraq, had the courage to come out as gay to a national audience and ask the Republican presidential candidates about how they’d handle troops like him. The audience responded to his question with boos, and Rick Santorum said he’s reinstate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (a promise he doubled down on later in the evening).

The big question today, even among conservatives, is: Why did none of the candidates stand up for the soldier? Here are some of today’s reactions to the offensive moment:

- Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer: “Booing a soldier serving our nation is uncalled for. If I were on stage, I would make that point.”

- The Hill’s Ballot Box: “None of the Republican candidates responded to the audience’s reaction.”

- CBS News: “Some audience members audibly booed the soldier — a moment the GOP candidates on stage chose to ignore.”

- The New Yorker: “His reply was breathtakingly bad: he talked about dangerous social experiments and what a mistake the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell had been; he didn’t even thank Hill, in a rote way, for his service. But none of the candidates did, and any one of them could have.”

- Christian Post: “Santorum, who has never served in the armed forces, did not address the boos, but explained his position by saying ‘sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.’”

- National Review: “Whatever you think of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” or homosexuality, Hill is risking his life on behalf of his country. It is troubling, and revealing, that Santorum’s answer entirely defined Hill as a gay man first and as a soldier second, if at all.”

- GOProud: “Tonight, Rick Santorum disrespected our brave men and women in uniform, and he owes Stephen Hill, the gay soldier who asked him the question about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal, an immediate apology. That brave gay soldier is doing something Rick Santorum has never done – put his life on the line to defend our freedoms and our way of life.  It is telling that Rick Santorum is so blinded by his anti-gay bigotry that he couldn’t even bring himself to thank that gay soldier for his service.”

- Log Cabin Republicans: “Unfortunately, for many Americans the take-away from last night’s debate was not that Republicans have the solutions our country needs, but that too many in our party are clinging so strongly to a failed and discriminatory law that they are willing to disrespect a man in uniform. As a current Army Reserve officer and an Iraq combat veteran, I found it appalling that a soldier serving down range would be disrespected in such a fashion.”

A petition is already underway on Change.org calling on Rick Santorum to apologize to gay soldiers. If Republicans are going to tolerate the shunning of gay troops, they will cause the very problems of unit cohesion they claimed would be the result of DADT repeal.

Tim Pawlenty took a shot at the American Conservative Union (ACU) for barring the gay Republican group GOProud from participating in next year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). ACU announced the decision last month in an effort to appease social conservatives who boycotted the conference last year in protest of GOProud’s presence. In an interview with the Miami Herald, Pawlenty stressed that Republicans shouldn’t be afraid of more debate:

Q: A gay conservative group (GOProud) won’t be allowed to participate in the Conservative Political Action Committee conference. What do you think of that?

PAWLENTY: “I’m not familiar with that particular controversy. But I don’t think Republicans or conservatives should be afraid of debating the issues. We can agree or disagree on the merits of it. I’m for more debate, not less debate.”

Some prominent conservatives — including Andrew Breitbart who sits on GOProud’s board — have also denounced CPAC’s decision, arguing that “barring GOProud from a huge political event in a Presidential election year will only serve to fracture the conservative movement.” “What the American Conservative Union did with CPAC has nothing to do with true conservative values, because GOProud supports those,” conservative blogger Jeff Dunetz explained.

The Family Research Council and a few other social conservative organizations like Concerned Women for America, American Principles Project and American Values are refusing to attend next month’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to protest the participation GOProud, a gay rights group. But Focus on Family is staying put, at least for now:

“They made a mistake,” CitizenLink spokesman Tom Minnery said Tuesday of the conference organizer, The American Conservative Union. “We’re not happy about it. We’ve got to see a better result next year or our participation is in doubt.”

Minnery said he believes discussions are underway to change the situation for next year.

“We’re encouraged to stick it out this year,” Minnery said. “It’s important for organizations like ours, for social conservatives, to be involved in the conversation.”

GOProud will be a “participating organization,” at the conference, “the second highest level of participation and will have a voice in planning the conference.” All this is too much for some conservative attendees, who are interpreting the group’s inclusion as an abandonment of conservative principles. “By bringing in GOProud, CPAC was effectively saying moral opposition to homosexuality is no longer welcome in the conservative movement,” Americans for Truth about Homosexuality president Peter LaBarbera, said. Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, concurs, “We said GOProud is not a conservative organization. They are undermining the military” by promoting open homosexuality, and “undermining marriage” by opposing the Defense of Marriage Act, which preserves the traditional definition of marriage by limiting it to one man and one woman. The conservative news site WorldNetDaily, a major cheerleader for the groups boycotting CPAC, is even “giving right wing activist Frank Gaffney a platform to charge the ACU with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist group.”

Last year, David Keene, the head of CPAC’s main organizing group, tried to calm a very similar boycott by assuring conservatives that GOProud would not have a speaking spot and that gay rights issues would not be “open to debate.” CPAC has historically focused less on far-right social priorities than other conservative conferences, but the presence of GOProud at last year’s event caused somewhat of a civil war among the attendees. A speaker who thanked the organizers for allowing GOProud to co-sponsor the conference was met with angry boos and heckling from the audience. A few minutes later, another activist slammed GOProud and engaged in a hostile shouting match with pro-gay rights students in the audience. Watch that exchange here.