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WASHINGTON, D.C., March 4, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Multiple writers at National Review have criticized CPAC's decision to exclude GOProud from its annual conservative political gathering in Washington, D.C. Instead of engaging in “a knee-jerk and insecure retreat,” CPAC's organizers should “embrace” the group, which endorses redefining marriage, because it is “conservative on the important issues,” they say.

NRO editor Jonah Goldberg wrote an article Friday about the organization's decision to decline GOProud as a sponsor, as well as its choice not to invite New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to speak. Goldberg wrote that CPAC's organizers chose to “toss the gays over the side” before branding that move “a knee-jerk and insecure retreat.”

National Review posted an unsigned editorial later that day, one of three articles to date on the topic.

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The editors wrote while the American Conservative Union has the right to invite whomever they please, “we nevertheless regret that CPAC has excluded the gay conservative group GOProud.”

The organization's “conservatism extends to its circumspection about many planks of the so-called gay-rights agenda,” they wrote.

However, that “circumspection” does not extend to redefining marriage, which GOProud endorsed in January.

Including the pro-marriage redefinition group and Governor Chris Christie “could help move the intra-conservative conversation in productive new directions,” they added.

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As a result of the disinvite, MSNBC commentator Chris Hayes declined an invitation to this year's gathering. Hayes is editor-at-large for Nation magazine and formerly a Schumann Center Writing Fellow at the socialist magazine In These Times.

NRO stated that his absence “probably had a greater downside for CPAC than its past inclusion of GOProud ever did.”

In a third piece at National Review, Daniel Foster stated GOProud is “conservative on the important issues,” including “social issues.”

Daniel Foster is NRO's news editor. He was formerly a feature writer at The Onion.

Republicans are currently embroiled in a civil war over how to address their loss in the 2012 presidential race. Some believe the election, in which millions of registered Republicans stayed home, indicated the party should jettison its position on issues like abortion and protecting marriage.

More than 80 Republican Party moderates recently signed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court supporting marriage redefinition.

“Due to the ever changing scope of the Republican Party, the meaning of the word conservative has remained in flux,” Bill Hahn, public relations and marketing manager of the John Birch Society, told LifeSiteNews.com.

The John Birch Society, a sponsor of the 2010 CPAC conference, was excluded alongside GOProud in 2011. The JBS is stuanchly conservative on abortion and marriage.

“We prefer to be labeled part of the Constitutionalist movement as it stands rock solid on Americanist principles – something many mainstream Republicans can only pay lip service to,” Hahn said. “We encourage all conservatives to firmly base themselves on the Constitution in order to rebuild the liberty and morality Americans have neglected for generations.”

Bryan Fischer, the host of Focal Point on the AFR Talk network, praised the decision not to invite the “pseudo-conservative organization” GOProud, saying that marriage redefinition “is not a conservative value.”

“Supporters of the practice should not be allowed to sponsor CPAC any more than supporters of abortion, higher taxes, bigger government and fascism,” he wrote.

However, he faulted the group for hosting a pro-amnesty roundtable on illegal immigrants, a critique shared by immigration reformer Mark Krikorian.

He also opposed the exclusion of anti-Islam blogger Pam Geller, who wrote that she applied to be a speaker but was “ignored.”

Although she does not make it a focus of her blogging, Geller has said, “I am pro-choice – early, that is” and told The Jewish Week that she long saw everything “through the prism of abortion.” According to the Village Voice, she also supports homosexual “marriage.”

Criticism of National Review's current editors, Goldberg and Rich Lowry, has gone on for more than a decade, most memorably when columnist Ann Coulter said the duo are “just girly-boys.”

The magazine's latest stance clashes with that of National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., who opposed marriage redefinition and once called Gore Vidal a “queer” during ABC's live coverage of the 1968 Democratic National Convention.