Avoid Social Issues, GOP Urged (Homosexualists, Pro-Aborts Co-opt Tea Party Movement)

Politico ^ | Sunday, November 14, 2010 | Ben Smith and Byron Tau

[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 Party’s 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 Party’s 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, Nebraska’s 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

[montag813]

"This election was not a mandate for the Republican Party, nor was it a mandate to act on any social issue."

Well it wasn't a mandate for the Tea Party either, given that most tea party candidates lost.

[DJ MacWoW]

The problem is it's happening at the state level and in the courts. The recent elections should help as most states went red.

Gotta go to bed. Night.

[behzinlea]

The whole, suffocating liberal agenda is bound up in your spurious defense of a deviant sexual behavior as equivalent to the defense of a person under the Constitution. Once you have bought into that liberal lie, you have necessarily ceded power and authority to government to coerce everyone into conforming to it.

You have chosen to strike out at the fiscal liberal rattlesnake and to allow the social liberal constrictor to coil itself around your neck.

RIP.

Social conservatism and fiscal conservatism are not opposed to each other. Quite the contrary. Each is necessary to the very survival of conservatism. Any supposed conservative who cannot understand that, is a trivial, unserious conservative. God save us from such feeble, half-hearted "defenders."

[montag813]

Tea Party Patriots is a fraud which did next to nothing except fight with Tea Party Express, which spent millions at least trying to elect conservatives.

[metmom]

Second, since anyone who practices same sex sodomy - aka a homosexual - is mentally ill and of bad character, there should be some curtailments of opportunities such as serving in the military that should not be open to them. But serving in the military, or for example teaching in public school, are not Constitutional rights, and therefore there is no infringement on their Constitutional rights in disallowing them from such (or other) opportunities.

As far as Constitutional rights, I can’t think of any that would not accrue to practitioners of same sex sodomy - they have the right to free speech, association, religious expression, owning fire arms, the right to a jury trial, not have soldiers quartered in their homes, the protection from unlawful search and seizure, and so on.

That bears repeating.

The rights guaranteed us in the Constitution do not equate to giving people the *right* to do whatever they fancy regardless of he consequences or impact on society.

The right to *life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness* is not license to hold the rest of society hostage to whatever behavior one person happens to feel like engaging in at the moment without regard to it's impact on others around him.

There is an obligation for anyone who wants to be part of society to be willing to work with others to make that society safe and productive and free. And, strange as it may sound, that includes sometimes restricting what one wants to do for the benefit of others. Libertarians are typically blind to this aspect of it. Or unwilling to acknowledge it.

The problem comes in when people refuse to voluntarily restrict their behavior out of courtesy for others. The others generally don't like being held hostage to the demands of one aberrant individual, and so the government ends up stepping in to impose external controls on that person's behavior.

Ironic as it ends up being, those who hold the libertarian position of unbridled license for all to do whatever they please without restriction or fear of consequences, are the very ones the most responsible for the INCREASE in government interference in people's personal lives, as the government is called on by the general populace to protect them from those who will not cooperate with others in society.

[metmom]

What’s that a picture of?

[Kimberly GG]

“The main social Conservative issue should be stopping illegal and less legal immigration.”

I agree. Our sovereignty and national security depend on it and without it, all other issues are moot. However, preventing amnesty is a social issue that someone like Tea Party organizer/supporter Dick Armey (FreedomWorks) won’t go for, as they are pro-path to citizenship amnesty.

I think most of us have recognized that when it came down to Americans joined under the umbrella of the tea party... vs... specific social issues, many of our friends would become our opposition.

[RedMDer]

Meteor or comet. Not sure, but your last post was the ‘post of the day’. Very well done.

[steveab]

‘First of all, “gay” means happy and carefree.’
The only two homosexual guys I know call them self gays. Why? I don’t know. I don’t how they vote or if they vote. I do know they ain’t for a nanny state. They think same sex marriage is a joke. I don’t know their view on abortion. But I can paint all homosexual as communist or pro abortion without facts. And no I don’t agree with their life style, it’s a dying breed.

[Syncro]

I notice that many of the signers sign with a “Tea Party Patriots” signature.

And that some of the blogs are homosexual's blogs.

And that the issues that they stress leave out TAXES!

Don't they know that the TEA in Tea Party means TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY??

The Tea Party Patriots leadership is mainly focused on making money.

And yes, they continue to try to marginalize the Tea Party Express because the TPX is the largest and most well known Tea Party group in existence.

And it remains grassroots and continues to emphasize that the leaders of the Tea Party Movement are the scores of millions of citizens that wish to bring our country back to a small government Constitutional Republic run by the guidelines spelled out in the Constitution.

I have a lot of information about the TPP...Such as taking credit for a Free Republic Tea Party in Sacramento Feb 27, 2009 to trying to also take credit for the Tex Day Tea Party in Sacramento on April 15, 2009 which the TPX got the permit for and used it to send off the first Tea Party Express cross country tour.

The fist of 4, all of which were immensely successful and brought out millions of people who had never been to a political event before.

Thanks for your post.

[little jeremiah]

What’s the glowing thing? A bone with rhinestones on it?

[little jeremiah]

:-)

[little jeremiah]

And the GOProud is “proud” in the sense of “they glory in their shame”!

[little jeremiah]

They’re not even a wolf in sheeps’ clothing. They’re a wolf that looks like a wolf with a name tag that says “sheep”.

[RedMDer]

I thought it was a comet but, I like your description better. LOL!

[SunkenCiv]

thanks kristinn. Related topic, I think it *may* be from JimRob:

One more time: FR’s God-given Life & Liberty constitutional conservative activism agenda!!
In response to GOP Proud (Queer eye and RINO guy for the TPP) | Nov 14, 2010 | Jim Robinson
Posted on 11/14/2010 5:13:16 PM PST by Jim Robinson
Edited on 11/14/2010 5:16:03 PM PST by Jim Robinson
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2627159/posts

[little jeremiah]

Good night! Don’t forget to check those three pinged out articles tomorrow about NAMBLA, the “gay rights” movement, Soros and the Communist party, and how it ties in to the current administration via Jennings, Frank David Marshal and so on.

[Screaming_Gerbil]

What’s that a picture of?

First Close-up Photos of Comet Hartley 2 Reveal a Space Peanut

[RockyMtnMan]

LOL, I have to laugh. Folks you can’t do anything without money in this country. Yeah we can fight the court battles as they come and do our best in stacking the courts. Bottom line is congress will only focus on a limited set of issues during the next session. If the agenda is abortion, homosexuality, or any other variety of “social issues” the books will not get balanced and we’ll sink deeper into oblivion. Is it not a sin to spend beyond your means with full knowledge and indifference?

We need to have razor sharp focus on the main issues that will destroy this country. Our financial solvency is the number one issue. Social security, medicaid and all other out of control wasteful expenditures will bankrupt us. Then what? No one will care about anything but finding a way to support their families, that is a simple truth.

Soon we’ll be broke trying to figure out how to feed our families. Does that mean we didn’t want to attend the moral decay of society? There’s a fire folks, we can focus on putting it out or let the house burn down.

[LomanBill]

>>’you folks’ means I can’t get my oxygen tank out on the street anymore.
>>Calm down; I’m on your side.

Thank you.