GOProud Cofounder Defends Ann Coulter Tweet on Coming Out Day

A cofounder of the gay conservative group GOProud says the outrage over conservative pundit Ann Coulter's tweet about parents disowning their LGBT children following National Coming Out Day is "laughable."

Coulter wrote Monday, "Last Thursday was national 'coming out' day. This Monday is national 'disown your son' day."

Shortly after her words fired up Twitter users, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation issued a statement acknowledging that Coulter's words were meant to be a joke but saying "she is not really taken seriously in any context anyway."

Aaron McQuade, director of news and field media at GLAAD, said he "thought it would be a good opportunity to talk about this idea of hers."

"There was a time in our culture's history when, if thousands of LGBT kids were to come out on the same day, the next week genuinely would be exactly what Ann describes, all across the country," McQuade said Tuesday. "Fathers disowning their sons and kicking them out onto the street. Mothers locking up their daughters or sending them to charm school. Children forced to undergo electro-shock or even worse forms of 'therapy' to rid themselves of their orientation."

Coulter ally and GOProud cofounder Christopher Barron, however, told The Advocate on Wednesday, that GLAAD was overreacting to the author's joke.

He added that he knows Coulter personally, and that she "has been a strong ally of gay conservatives. Indeed, Ann has gone into the lion's den at places like CPAC to make the case that gay people should be welcomed in the conservative movement. The criticism of Ann by an organization like GLAAD is laughable."

Barron criticized the organization for honoring blogger Joe Jervis of JoeMyGod.com after he and GOProud's leaders engaged in a verbal battle in recent years.

"As long as GLAAD thinks that is acceptable they can spare me the trumped-up selective outrage over a joke made by Ann. Putting GLAAD in charge of what passes as acceptable or unacceptable discourse is a little bit like putting a pyromaniac in charge of the fire department."