Ryan Sorba: rising anti-gay antihero ?

Appearing as a speaker representing the California Young Americans for Freedom at the CPAC convention, Sorba lost no time in alienating the crowd, reportedTPMDC in a Feb. 19 article. Sorba had been invited by the moderator to step to the microphone to talk about how he had participated in an investigation into ACORN and had been misidentified by FOX News celebrity Glenn Beck. "Just to change the subject for just a second," Sorba told his audience upon reaching the podium, "I’d like to condemn CPAC for bringing GOPride [sic] to this event."

The crowd instantly began to jeer Sorba, who responded, "Bring it. Bring it. I love it. I love it. I love it."
Guess what?" Sorba went on. "Guess what? All right, guess what? Civil rights are grounded in natural rights. Natural rights are grounded in human nature. Human nature is a rational substance in relationship. The intelligible end of the reproductive act is reproduction. You understand that." As the booing continued, Sorba continued, "Civil rights, when they conflict with natural rights, are contrary--hey, you, sit down," he interrupted himself in order to chide someone not visible on-camera. 

As the jeering intensified, Sorba insulted the audience directly, telling them, "The lesbians at Smith College protest better than you do. The lesbians at Smith College protest than you do. All right? Bring it."

Following his bizarre outburst, Sorba was approached by gay American University student Alex Knepper, who was attending the CPAC convention. " ’So, you’re the infamous Ryan Sorba,’ " Knepper relates saying to the young activist in a Feb. 20 article at Race42012.com. " ’You’ve made quite a name for yourself.’ "

Knepper reports that Sorba asked, "So what did you think of my little tirade, then?"

"Oh, I thought it was quite evil, actually. I’m gay," responded Knepper.

"You mean you think you’re gay," Sorba told him.

"No, I’m gay," Knepper rejoined. "Do you think it’s a choice?"

"I think it’s the result of a complex process of social and environmental factors, but that it’s reversible," replied Sorba.

The two then began to argue over animals exhibiting homosexual conduct in the wild, with Sorba then claiming that Knepper had "a lisp." Knepper, who denies having a lisp, fired back, "Rudy Giuliani has a lisp--is he gay?"

At that point, Knepper reports, Sorba "went off on what he affectionately called ’his tirade’--giving the same mangled pseudo-Aristotelian spiel about how natural rights have to be grounded in natural law, meaning substance, and the final result of the reproductive organ must be a reproductive act, and all of that.

" ’Yeah, yeah, I get your argument, I understand it,’ I tried to interrupt, But he said that I didn’t, and he finished.

" ’But the vast majority of married couples partake in sodomy--oral sex, anal sex, fetishes," Knepper told Sorba. "Hasn’t your girlfriend ever given you a blowjob? I think the government should just get out of the whole marriage business!" Knepper went on to add, "I’m the one who says that my values shouldn’t have anything to do with government. It’s you who wants to impose his own biases upon the rest of the world!"

Sorba responded that "conservatives should not be upholding groups who support homosexual marriage and sodomy," and the discussion got more heated from there, with Sorba saying "something about how he could ’take me on’ physically if he needed to, to which I mentioned that his quick resort to force and threats said a lot about his political philosophy."

After offering to shake Knepper’s hand--and being snubbed--Sorba began to walk away. Knepper reports that someone walking with Sorba said to him, "Really, though, he had a point: why do you care about this so much when the economy is in shambles and the debt is growing and spending is out of control?"