The Hill News

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins will deliver a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), he announced on Thursday, a reversal of a previous decision not to attend the major annual gathering of conservative thinkers.

Perkins and other conservatives had refused to attend CPAC if GOProud, a group of gay Republicans that co-sponsored the conference in 2010, was also participating.The American Conservatives Union, which hosts the conference, eliminated that problem by kicking out GOProud.

In a July letter to GOProud obtained by The Hill, American Conservative Union's executive director, Gregg Keller, informed the group that its members were welcome to attend individually, but that the group was not invited to have any formal role, such as sponsorship.

“Tony Perkins’s message lost Republicans the election in 2006 and 2008, but the message of the Tea Party, reining in the size and scope of government, won Republicans elections in 2010,” said GOProud Executive Director Jimmy LaSalvia. “Now some conservatives want to forget that and go back to the old ways, and will likely lose elections again.”

The conference will take place in Washington in February 2012.

News of Perkins's decision to attend the conference was first reported by the Christian Broadcasting Network.