Posted on 11/14/2010 3:38:40 PM PST by kristinn
A gay conservative group and some Tea Party leaders are campaigning to keep social issues off the Republican agenda.
In a letter to be released Monday, the group GOProud and leaders from groups like the Tea Party Patriots and the New American Patriots, will urge Republicans in the House and Senate to keep their focus on shrinking the government.
"On behalf of limited-government conservatives everywhere, we write to urge you and your colleagues in Washington to put forward a legislative agenda in the next Congress that reflects the principles of the Tea Party movement," they write to presumptive House Speaker John Boehner and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell in an advance copy provided to POLITICO. "This election was not a mandate for the Republican Party, nor was it a mandate to act on any social issue."
The letter's signatories range from GOProud's co-founder and Chairman Christopher Barron a member of a group encouraging Dick Cheney to run for president and who has been known to post images of his bare torso to Twitter to Tea Party leaders with no particular interest in the gay rights movement.
As of Sunday evening, the letter had 17 signatories. They include tea party organizers, conservative activists and media personalities from across the country, including radio host Tammy Bruce, bloggers Bruce Carroll, Dan Blatt and Doug Welch, and various local coordinators for the Tea Party Patriots and other tea party groups.
"When they were out in the Boston Harbor, they weren't arguing about who was gay or who was having an abortion," said Ralph King, a letter signatory who is a Tea Party Patriots national leadership council member, as well as an Ohio co-coordinator.
King said he signed onto the letter because GOProud seemed to be genuine in pushing for fiscal conservatism and limited government.
"Am I going to be the best man at a same sex-marriage wedding? That's not something I necessarily believe in," said King. "I look at myself as pretty socially conservative. But that's not what we push through the Tea Party Patriots."
That indifference is essentially the point of the gay conservative group.
SNIP
TEXT OF LETTER
Dear Senator McConnell and Representative Boehner
On behalf of limited government conservatives everywhere we write to urge you and your colleagues in Washington to put forward a legislative agenda in the next Congress that reflects the principles of the Tea Party movement.
Poll after poll confirms that the Tea Partys laser focus on issues of economic freedom and limited government resonated with the American people on Election Day. The Tea Party movement galvanized around a desire to return to constitutional government and against excessive spending, taxation and government intrusion into the lives of the American people.
The Tea Party movement is a non-partisan movement, focused on issues of economic freedom and limited government, and a movement that will be as vigilant with a Republican-controlled Congress as we were with a Democratic-controlled Congress.
This election was not a mandate for the Republican Party, nor was it a mandate to act on any social issue, nor should it be interpreted as a political blank check.
Already, there are Washington insiders and special interest groups that hope to co-opt the Tea Partys message and use it to push their own agenda particularly as it relates to social issues. We are disappointed but not surprised by this development. We recognize the importance of values but believe strongly that those values should be taught by families and our houses of worship and not legislated from Washington, D.C.
We urge you to stay focused on the issues that got you and your colleagues elected and to resist the urge to run down any social issue rabbit holes in order to appease the special interests.
The Tea Party movement is not going away and we intend to continue to hold Washington accountable. Sincerely,
Christopher R Barron
Chairman of the Board, GOProud
Andrew Ian Dodge
Coordinator, Maine Tea Party Patriots
Pam Stevenson
Coordinator, Arizona Tea Party Patriots
Dianna Greenwood
Executive Director, New American Patriots (Ashland, OH)
Jim Mason II
Chairman and State Coordinator, Nebraskas Tea Party Patriots
Ralph King
Co-coordinator Cleveland Tea Party Patriots
Co-coordinator State of Ohio Tea Party Patriots
Jack Lien
Coordinator, Tea Party Patriots of Great Malls (Montana)
Tammy Bruce
National Radio Talk Show Host
JP Weber
Coordinator, Annapolis (Maryland) Tea Party
Doug Welch,
Blogger and member Southern Illinois Tea Party
Bruce Carroll
Conservative Activist and Blogger
Pam Stout
Coordinator, Sandpoint Idaho Tea Party Patriots
Dan Blatt
Conservative Activist and Blogger
Everett Wilkinson
Coordinator, Florida Tea Party
Jimmy LaSalvia
Executive Director, GOProud
Paul Crockett
President Santa Clara (California) Tea Party
David Thor Andreasen
Cumberland County (Maine) Tea Party
LCR is not exactly a conservative group, anyhow, so I’m not sure why the article painted them as such.
Well, even one fingered someone can type faster than that. I do. :-)
Zotfest here. Have fun, one at least.
Now, you're out of the closet as to why you hate Sarah Palin so much and are coming up with lame arguments why she can't win. You're either liberaltarian or social liberal.
It's another brain-dead argument. Republicans have plenty of time address both fiscal and social issue. They either do both or lose.
You want for more years of Obama, keep trying to screw over factions of the conservative base. That is the only way he can win.
That's not how it works. And the social issues directly impact the fiscal ones. Anyone that ignores that is stupid.
Social issues are a higher priority than fiscal issues for social conservatives.
Here is a clue you are not bright enough to understand on your own:
Unemployed people deprived of their ability to work by a socialist government tend to move right in their thinking
Social conservative not only have zero intentions of compromising social issues to achieve fiscal goals...it pays off to hold true.
Social conservatives literally do not need those votes you describe if they are playing for the long haul. We will get many of them as people come face to face with themselves when they have more time than money on their hands, and no more rich government helping them go play some more.
You have no clue about the difference between States’ Rights and Nanny State Federal Government.
Libertarianism is merely the ultra kook fringe of leftism.
Pick their battles.
Slash government spending. Shrink the size of government by simply defunding it.
The rest will sort itself out. Social liberalism cannot survive without the teet of Big Government.
We concentrate all of our ammo on one target spending and don't let up.
Great advice that I feel is worth repeating.
They don't have time to do more than focus on issue?
And, they can address social concerns while shrinking government. They can cut off money to Planned Parenthood and pass legislation that prevents a penny of taxpayers' dollars from funding abortion.
>>that are uncomfortable with “Social Issues”
Maybe that’s because they’ve been indoctrinated and desensitized with politically correct purple bovine excrement — you know, the pro-homo propagandafest the MSM is selling these days?
Meanwhile, some of us are STILL capable of observing relevant self-evident Natural Truths — such as “Gay” penguins in the San Fransicko zoo, that WEREN’T — for OURSELVES.
Is the activist exploitation of reproductive dysfunction a CHOICE? Yes, it is.
NO SALE.
Here’s another noob/retread troll.
Screw you, troll.
Thanks to enough idiots on SCOTUS no states can make such laws now.
The right to sodomy is not protected under the Constituiton. That’s your fantasy, noob/retread troll.
If people who refuse to acknowledge this remain in control, barbarism will reign. It's already knocking on our doorstep. This is not some inconsequential “social issue”, you blithering, self-absorbed neanderthals. This is everything. Everything.
Which Tea Party are you referring to?
Actually, social conservatism is the key to winning over Catholics and Reagan Democrats as well. That is one of the reasons both groups moved heavily toward Republicans in this election cycle.
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