Q Toon: Lost

GOProud has vanished. The ultra-conservative gay Republican group was to Log Cabin Republicans what the Tea Partisans are to Establishment Republicans -- hardline, doctrinaire, and bitchy.

They outed a Rick Perry pollster in December 2011; they endorsed Mitt Romney, who opposed same-sex marriage; they got into social-media fights with all comers; and they called conservative activist Cleta Mitchell a “bigot,” not especially helpful considering she was on a board that would decide whether they could sponsor the Conservative Political Action Conference, a longtime GOProud goal.

The group split away from the Log Cabineers, who had failed to issue knee-jerk endorsements of Republican candidates who actively opposed gay rights. GOProud's legislative agenda for 2011 was virtually indistinguishable from that of other conservative Republican groups; only its opposition to a federal antigay marriage amendment separated it from the Family Research Council. Even the "Defending Our Community" section of their platform referred to opposition to gun control.

I've had second thoughts about sending this cartoon to Q Syndicate rather than the one about marriage equality in Wisconsin posted here on Tuesday. The Wisconsin cartoon has gotten a lot of positive response in spite of my concern that few readers outside of Wisconsin would recognize that it was based on the seal on the Wisconsin state flag.

But I worry that while readers may pick up the reference to the search for a missing airplane in this week's cartoon, they won't have any awareness of GOProud. GOProud may have seen themselves as Dorothy Parker, but in the end, they were Baby Jane Hudson.