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
“Society and this country will fall from within. The moral decay that we are now witnessing is what is doing us in.”
It is killing our country. No doubt. On a federal level, fix the things that are easy to fix. State rights, spending, taxes. etc.
Let the states handle the social issues.
“Fix the social issues and the rest will fall into place.”
You cannot fix social issue across a nation. The social concerns of NY and CA are so different than anywhere else in the country. I don’t want their values imposed on me but likewise, it is not fair to impose the will of other states on them.
“That’s why we need to make social issues a priority.”
It can be a priority if handled correctly, at the local and state level.
If one state voted to legalize murder of people who are already born, how long do think that would last before something happened to change it via SCOTUS or fedgov action?
Also, since it is only because of Fedgov action that states have no freaking say in whether they want to legalize or illegalize abortion, the homosexual agenda or pornography (to list three), the fedgov needs to do some work to allow states to govern themselves as they were meant to under the Constitution.
In the meantime, the right to life should be a national issue because there is no reason under the sky that any state should be free to legalize murder - of the unborn or the already born.
The GOProud are not fiscally conservtive, nor are the Log Cabin Repugs (who mostly vote Dem anyway).
The sole purpose of the above organizations are to advance the homosexual agenda. They are not conservative in any way shape or form except in their nod to second amendment rights - even on their website that nod sounds like an afterthought or just so they aren't obviously "all gay" although they have indeed admitted that "gay rights" are their sole interest.
I would agree. I would go further and suggest always favoring governance as local as possible...
The problems remains -how exactly does this get achieved? By ignoring it and hoping it goes away. It makes sense that overreach initiated by the Federal at the Federal level be reversed. curtailed, and eliminated at the Federal level.
To all the whining RINOs I say lead, follow or get out of the way -NOTHING is off the table EVERYTHING is on the table...
Like what? Please be specific.
Drugs, sex, and rock and roll.
Avoid Social Issues, GOP Urged (Homosexualists, Pro-Aborts Co-opt Tea Party Movement) >>>
The Tea Party feels the same way.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2627138/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2627159/posts
Right now, I believe it's best for those of us who support Santorum to simply realize that people on the other side also have strong feelings, and simply “turn the other cheek” to well-meaning FReepers who sincerely support a different candidate. We've had too many “circular firing squads” already among Republicans. We need to unite behind a conservative agenda to defeat Mitt Romney now and Barack Obama this fall, and vicious attacks back against Newt Gingrich or his supporters don't help those goals any more than similar attacks on Rick Santorum or us.
Long-term, however, this issue is much bigger than whether Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich is the best candidate. The issue is whether we're going to have a conservative movement based on an appreciation for moral values or a European-style secular conservative movement. Newt Gingrich doesn't want a secular conservative movement any more than Rick Santorum does, but as this 2010 thread shows, there are powerful secular conservative forces which want that very badly.
As for me, I've said many times that while I prefer one of the two candidates, I can live with either. If Newt Gingrich is the Republican nominee, I expect to work as hard as I can to convince conservative evangelicals that Gingrich is the only viable alternative to President Obama and that supporting groups like the Constitution Party in November will only help Obama in a Gingrich-Obama race. I will also remind fellow evangelicals that some of the key civil rulers who supported the Reformation were men whose moral lives were far worse than the worst things Gingrich has ever been accused of doing. I have **ALREADY** tried to remind evangelicals that Gingrich has given good reason to believe he is personally repentant, and we ought to accept that at face value since nobody has given any contrary evidence.
I'm guessing that Roman Catholic FReepers will do the same, working to remind Roman Catholic conservatives that Gingrich is a faithful Mass-going Catholic whose marriage has been formally accepted by the Roman Catholic Church, and that he has pledged to defend the Roman Catholic Church against Obama’s health care mandates. While there are many things we will never know publicly, I think the difficulty of getting the Roman Catholic Church to accept the legitimacy of a third marriage is very good evidence of the sincerity of Gingrich's repentance.
Long term, however, I think it has become clear that some of the people who strongly oppose Rick Santorum do so not primarily because they believe Newt Gingrich is a better candidate, but because they oppose the social issues platform which Santorum has made a centerpiece of his political career.
Once this Republican primary campaign is over and we have a Republican nominee, whether it is Gingrich or Santorum (please, God, do **NOT** let it be Romney), something needs to be done to remind people that Free Republic is not supporting a “values free” version of the conservative movement. Newt Gingrich doesn't want a European-style secular conservative political party any more than Rick Santorum does — and Jim Robinson made quite clear in 2010 after the last election where he stands on that issue.
Free Republic is not perfect. Neither is anything else in this sin-filled world, including us or the candidates we support. However, Jim Robinson has repeatedly taken stands that conservative Christians should support.
Not only do we need to respect his rules in his house — private property is pretty important for conservatives — but the fact is that Jim Robinson has stood for biblical and moral truth on the key areas where the modern conservative movement is divided between secular conservatives and social issues conservatives.
Let's give credit where credit is due, follow Jim Robinson's rules, and remember that when things got tough two years ago, Jim Robinson stood on the side of conservative moral values, not for the other type of values-free secular conservatism.
Margaret Thatcher would call it “going wobbly”, perhaps.
Too late most "social" issues" such as abortion has been nationalized and gay rights are about to be nationalized. The supreme disappointment should kick these down BUT THEY DON'T DO THAT. States rights are dead and that DOES have consequences.
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