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
Right, work with them up until the night of the long knives, uhuh. They can not be trusted. Sorry, but that's the nature of moral degenerates who hide in the closet with a spinning moral compass.
Politics is a dirty business and the majority of the American people who sent these folks up there to DO that job aren't capable of surviving in the cesspool that is DC. The purpose of party politics (besides doing the people's business) is to win for the party agenda. The B-I-G picture. If these idiots are on the Hill and they have a vote, WE have to include them for as long as we need their votes. That doesn't mean we can't marginalize them or even let them know that they don't call the shots, but we do need to work with what we've got to work with and that would include the RATs who are feeling the heat and want to stay in their jobs.
Work with everybody as much as possible to shove our agenda along until we control the game. THEN we can get out the broom and clean the House! To do otherwise is not only foolish, it is wasting our shot. We absolutely cannot afford to waste the shot!
Welcome to Free Republic. Been here a whole 12 days and this is your first post? Been lurking for awhile?
I see where we're not connecting now.I'm talking about the (non-elected) Liberal Pirates now calling themselves the "Tea Party" who wrote the letter and essentially demanded their social agenda not be interfered with - while they are also trying to unexist the fact that a substantial portion of the real individuals who participated in real Tea Party events were Socially as well as Fiscally conservative.You're talking about the elected representatives those pirates are attempting to command.
That's common sense. I agree.What remains to be seen is which of these newly elected representatives, if any, constitutes "them" i.e. Social Liberals - maybe none at all.Hopefully none at all, and the Liberal Pirates are merely barking desperately from the outside, in which case I hope the freshmen IGNORE those outside special interest voices - and vote per the Truth in their conscience and input from their individual district constituents. Not per any "party" directive - RINO, Tea, or otherwise.
Keep fighting the good fight!!
My 10 y/o daughter is absolutely fascinated by the video—awestruck that she was created in God’s image in the same way. :*)
I have hope for the future of this country when I see her reaction to the preciousness of LIFE. :*)
“And all this is really ok in the name of irresponsible sex. I think your sense of morality is screwd up.”
I think you’ve posted to the wrong person.
!
There are personal issues and government issues...when you try to turn your personal issues into government issues you give permission for others to do that ...this is how the p.c. crowd has won so much social control allreaddy...
And now they have basically taken over our society.
The only answers are...
constitution,
freedom,
smaller gov.
less taxes.
Would you rather have freedom...or control over how other people live?
The founding fathers were christian...christianity used to need no promotion...people were attracted to it...they saw happy people living a good life...who were free to choose that path....
I dont know...but I cannot accept...the restrictive socialist concepts...or the criminality that is islam.
I think its time to concentrate on freedom again...more inportant than safety,or well anything else.
gltua
Sexual deviancy, abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, healthcare rationing, infanticide, unnatural marriage, anti-religious policies, anti-tradition policies are all unethical, immoral and atheistic socialist agendas. And, yes, they are social and cultural issues.
Any group that embraces this death culture, as mentioned above, is anti-American, atheistic, secularist, socialist, and does not belong to any authentic Tea Party ideal.
I had not seen that video and thank you so much for posting the link. Absolutely beautiful!
I admit I haven't read all the posts yet, but I have a feeling that after finishing, what I've read will show that this is exactly what they are trying.
And very well might succeed.
Does that mean I should tolerate a pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage republican who wants me to believe he's a conservative just because he believes in balancing his checkbook?
Does that mean I shouldn't ask the question?
1. It is IMPOSSIBLE for a pro-gay, pro-abortionist to be conservative.
2. I don't want them in my camp, because they will always stab you in the back.
Killing children is a government issue. Unfortunately, our government has it backwards.
Marriage, too, has always been a government issue. The state as well as the church has always been concerned in it.
If gays want to do their thing privately, that’s their business. But they cannot force gay marriage on our country. And they cannot force the military to accept gay activities in the barracks—any more than they can force the military to accept open adultery among its officers.
And they cannot force gay brainwashing on our children in the public schools.
Yet they are trying to do all these things. Not acceptable. Not a matter of private choice, either.
Are you by chance a former USMC Gunnery Sergeant? Because the only other time I have heard this term is on the Geico commercial where R. Lee Ermy is playing a psychologist as an example of how not to act... it was hilarious but I have no idea what a jackwagon actually IS and I'm a former infantry captain!
Exactly!
Congress debates thousands of heated issues every year. We don't have to avoid "divisive" issues like deregulation of veterinary medication, in order to get our nation's fiscal house in order. We can walk AND chew gum at the same time.
Fascinating. You figure by now people would learn to just sit down and STFU.
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