I forgot to mention Log Cabin Republicans...

In my larger piece yesterday about the problems facing the Democratic party and interest groups, including gay groups, I forgot to mention on group that actually gets kudos for their work this past year: the Log Cabin Republicans, i.e., the gay Republicans.

Of all the large groups, Log Cabin is the only one that stands out in my mind as actually showing some balls. I've been critical of Log Cabin for years because they've always seemed more concerned about being good Republicans than being good gays. Meaning, they always seemed a club for gay Republicans who wanted to convince each other they weren't selling the community out, rather than being a civil rights organization actually fighting for the civil rights of gay Americans. This year, Log Cabin under the stewardship of their executive director Patrick Guerriero, finally came to terms with who they are and should be, and they actually stuck their necks out and defended the community against our bigoted president.

It was a big deal for them not to endorse President Bush's re-election. Rather than worry about whether they were going to scotch their invite to the inauguration and the fancy cocktail parties, Log Cabin was more interested in trying to get the Republican party to stop bashing gays. They didn't just refuse to give Bush their endorsement. They ran ads implicitly criticizing him for endorsing the anti-gay amendment. This, even though, as I hear it, some of their top supporters were not happy at all that Log Cabin might consider doing anything that wasn't a full bear hug of this bigot of a president.

So, taking all that into account, the national organization that grew the most this year, that stuck its neck out the most, that was the boldest in view of how it has acted historically, was Log Cabin.