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 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
Backpedal? Whatever. I’m done trying to reason with you.
Spoken just like a liberal.
Liberals ALWAYS claim that social conservatives are trying to impose a "theocracy" any time we suggest that abortion and sodomy are immoral.
Freedom.
Not license and anarchy.
Darkwolf said it very well here in this post..
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2627400/posts?page=131#131
I don’t know, I am sorry to be ranting, but...I just don’t get it. This attitude is truly bizarre to me—the thinking seems to be, “Wellll, we couldn’t stop booze, so we can’t stop drugs, and should make those legal, and we can’t stop abortions so we should make THOSE legal...”
While we’re at it, by the same “logic” posted elsewhere on this, look at all the murders that take place by people who KNOW there are penalties for it.
Why make laws? SOMEONE is going to break ALL of them.
Ranting, ranting, sorry...but I just think if we can’t argue against killing babies, we might as well just forget the whole deal, because we won’t have a society that deserves preservation.
And this vanity by TCH....
TEA Party Groups Playing With Fire (Vanity)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2627602/posts
I said this on another thread......
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.
Stupid After-birther...
Laws against murder, rape, sexual abuse of children, theft, lying, perjury, cheating, vandalism, destruction of personal property, are all laws regulating moral issues.
Which ones do you propose that we get rid of?
And Metmom too.
Well, that’s kind of the point isn’t it. I don’t know what values others are fighting for, but I’m fighting for God’s. The Founders’. Ours, i.e., America’s traditional rugged, hard as nails, no nonsense, conservative individualist, hardworking, independent, self-sustaining, self-governing, God-fearing family values!
Those who don’t like it can move to Cuba, Venezuela or Russia or where ever, but we don’t have much use for them on FR.
I've already said a number of times how abortion is murder, even from a more libertarian standpoint. If it's human, killing it murder.
Let me say that one more time for all you idiots out there that still don't seem to get it... "If it is human, killing it is murder." Period.
Are we clear on that?
Good.
As for gays, not my thing. I don't lose sleep over what others do in their bedrooms. I DO fully oppose the gay lobbies efforts to carve themselves special privileges be it redefining marriage or flaunting their "lifestyle" in public. They sure as hell shouldn't be teaching it as "normal" in the schools.
Are we clear on that?
Is THAT spoken like a liberal? Or by someone who wants to see his Country turned back into the Constitutional bastion of freedom it is supposed to be?
If that isn't enough for you, then exactly what do you purpose to do about gays? Kill them? Round them up and ship them to Canada? Detention camps? Seriously... What would you suggest? I don't have a clue how to do it beyond taking their judicial and FedGov stick away from them and going back to ostracizing them from "polite" society.
You’re a typical word juggler. I’m a simple human. I don’t know how to debate using slippery tactics.
And?
B/S. Look, if you don’t like FR and what we’re fighting for, just freepin leave already! Leave, stay or whatever, but if you continue posting like a liberal Marxist troll, you’ll get the zot like a liberal Marxist troll.
Did I say that?
You asked which moral standards and I said the ones this country was founded on, which are Biblical one, and I provided quotes from the FOUNDING FATHERS as support and you disagree with them?
They certainly based this Constitution on Biblical principles and it's hardly resulted in a theocracy.
Abandoning the Christian roots of our Constitution and country will result in an atheistic society and that worked out real well in the 20th century, didn't it?
Just ask all the people who lived under Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Kim Jung Il....
How's that atheistic world view looking now?
You talk as though the government can be completely neutral about moral issues. Hands off.
That is not possible. For instance, homosexuality. Either they’re allowed in the military, or they’re forbidden from being in the military. Either they’re allowed to have “Gay Pride” parades, or they are not allowed to have parades. Either they are allowed to marry members of the same sex, or they aren’t.
And so on.
The government can never be neutral about morality.
What Libertarians want is no government laws regarding sexual morality. It’s their Golden Calf.
And the Founders were perfectly fine with state laws regulating sodomy as well as other moral issues Libertarians want “hands off”.
What some of these other folks are talking about is enforcing THEIR view of morality from the point of a gun. Giving MORE power to the FedGov rather than taking that power away so no one gets hurt with it.
Would the gay lobby have a leg to stand on if they didn't have judges and the legislature pushing their crap on the rest of us and into our schools? Would abortion still be legal if not for Roe V Wade and Federal Funding for Planned Parenthood?
You've got some single issue types here giving me the red-ass because I see a different way to get the same objectives done without ruining our Constitution or making things even worse.
It's your playground. They just like trying to be the bullies.
Yup. God's Rules are the only perfect moral code. No other will do.
BTTT
I remember him from the Lower Merion webcam threads.
He didn’t have any problem with the schools using the school issued laptops to spy on the kids at home. He blamed the parents who didn’t know that the laptops had the capability to do so, for letting it happen.
Okay, if you think all those things can have laws against them, what are you so angry about?
How about pedophilia how-to manuals sold on Amazon? Is that okay with you?
A Marxist? Really Jim? Exactly what have I said that even comes close to that? Seriously. Go back through my 11 years worth of posting history and find me ONE thing that deserved that!
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