A popular commentator's gay slur at a key political conservative conference in Washington drew strong protests Sunday as Republicans rushed to distance themselves.
Ann Coulter, an outspoken conservative pundit widely seen in print, on television and radio, suggested Friday that Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards was a "faggot" -- a derogatory term for a homosexual -- at the annual meeting in Washington of the influential Conservative Political Action Conference.
"I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. But it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,'" Coulter said to howls and applause.
But two days afterwards, Democrats were bashing Coulter for hate speech and Republicans, including leading candidates who attending the same conference, rejected her language.
"It would be better, in my opinion, to not have a CPAC at all than to have one that presents conservatism as a hostile, people-hating ideology," said Amy Ridenour, whose National Center for Public Policy Research was one of the paying sponsors for CPAC.
"We conservatives have enough trouble overcoming the false things that are said about us without paying for a platform upon which we shoot ourselves annually in the foot," she wrote on her weblog Sunday.
On his campaign website, Edwards said that in her remarks, "Republican mouthpiece Ann Coulter brought hate-speech politics to a new low."
"In America, we strive for equality and embrace diversity. The kind of hateful language she used has no place in political debate or our society at large."
Hosted by the American Conservative Union, the annual CPAC meeting gathers the country's leading conservative politicians and thinkers to promote their cause. This year's event drew several candidates for the Republican nomination in next year's presidential race, including Rudolph Giuliani, Mitt Romney and expected candidate Newt Gingrich.
The most prominent speaker at the event was Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter is gay.
The New York Times reported Sunday that candidate John McCain, who was not at the CPAC meeting, branded Coulter's slur "wildly inappropriate."
The newspaper's website also quoted a spokesman for Mitt Romney -- who was endorsed at the meeting by Coulter -- as saying: "It was an offensive remark. Governor Romney believes all people should be treated with dignity and respect."
Coulter is known for her sharp vocal and written attacks against Democrats and liberals, and made news at the 2006 CPAC when she referred to Arabs and Muslims as "ragheads".
Ridenour said Coulter's attendance made her group think twice about supporting CPAC.
The meeting, which some see as a preliminary stop to the 2008 primaries for the Republican nomination, voted in a straw poll for their favorite.
The result was Romney with 21 percent, Giuliani with 17 percent, Sam Brownback 15 percent, Gingrich 14 percent, and McCain 12 percent.
