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

[raybbr]

I think you misunderstood this. They are not arguing for rights, they are against wasting time on crap that doesn't need committee time.

At first I agreed with you. I thought this made a lot of sense.

After reading many comments I am thinking that these guys are attempting to stave off any action by the GOP to write a marriage bill or enact any of what we would consider conservative social issues.

The truth is, I am still on the fence as to what they are trying to do but I can see the meaning from both sides.

[LomanBill]

[Social liberalism cannot survive without the teet of Big Government.]

 

Sounds nice and "fiscally conservative" - but whose teat were these folks...

“The Pink Swastika is a powerful exposure of pre-World War II Germany and its quest for reviving and imitating a Hellenistic-paganistic idea of homo-eroticism and militarism.”        
Dr. Mordechai Nisan, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

...suckling from back circa 1933, hmmm?

 

What's next - a Tea Cup Putsch?

 

Some folks actually learned from history about what happens when the moral miscreants are allowed to take over the asylum - like the last time the postgenderist/transumanist uber-doctrine got political and military traction.

 

NO SALE.   

 

 

 

[wagglebee]

I think you misunderstood this. They are not arguing for rights, they are against wasting time on crap that doesn't need committee time.

WRONG, they are trying to obliterate the right to life and replace it with the right to kill and sodomize.

You are not going to change Roe v. Wade by getting into a snit every time you think you've been insulted.

That sounds just like what the Whigs were saying about slavery.

And, BTW, nobody calls the shots for the tea party movement so you can all ignore whatever you want to and move on to something else.

The Tea Party movement will find itself as obsolete and insignificant as the 1994 Contract with America if they marginalize social conservatives.

Issa should be asking why Holder is a racist, not why he kills babies and kisses drag queens.

Because racism is more important than the fact that a baby is murdered every 24 seconds?

[OrangeHoof]

Let’s make a deal with the RINO wing of the party:

We conservatives will shut up about social issues and, in return, you RINOS stop selling us out to Democrats on the green agenda, immigration, taxes, spending, political correctness, campaign finance, etc.

Deal?

[bboop]

We can both work towards the same end, but I will not be pushed around by the Gay Crowd that evidently wants to be part of the Tea Party as long as we follow THEIR rules.

No way, no how.

[Anti-Bubba182]

Didn't Tea Party Patriots give out the private numbers of the new Members to their members? And who needs GopProud? How many Gay Conservatives could there be?

Who are these people to speak for the movement?

[Cobra64]

You don’t know what the hell you are spouting about.

Yeah, you're probably right. No one in our family follows gay/lesbian behavior.

[counterpunch]

We're not the ones opening up the front; they are.
And you expect us to tie our hands behind our backs, while they take away our freedoms of speech and thought?

I'm saying there is more than one way to skin a cat.
If Republicans go off the mandate they were elected on and start making a lot of unnecessary noise about the stuff they always lose elections over, then they will have a very short tenure in the majority.

People want to feel that Republicans are doing what they were elected to do, which is reign in spending, shrink the size of government, and return liberty to the People.

If they do that, then all of these other issues will fall into place, because they are all outcroppings of government run amok, getting involved in areas where it doesn't belong, sometimes where it is strictly prohibited by the Constitution.

Return Constitutional Government, and freedom of speech and thought will be restored, and "social justice" — the bastard child of Big Government — will shrivel up and die.
 

[misterrob]

Yeah but Tommy didn’t seem to have an issue with subjecting another human to slavery....

[B Knotts]

I think they’re confused by the fact that the TEA parties have reinvigorated fiscal conservatism. It did, and we did have people in the GOP in the past decade who had forgotten about the fiscal side, and only promoted “social” conservatism (at least when they thought we were looking).

But, the truth is, it’s all necessary, and we can’t and WON’T sacrifice decency, morality and religious freedom (including freedom of conscience), even if we’re promised a tax cut.

We need to promote the American values of small government, common decency (including respect for all human life born and unborn) and strong and effective national defense. One without the others is not acceptable!

[wagglebee]

I agree, this idea that conservatives can only do one or the other is ONLY furthered by people who aren't actually conservative to begin with.

Ronald Reagan figure out and proved that conservatism can ONLY WORK if it includes fiscal conservatism, social conservatism and strong national defense. Without all three it fails.

[glassylassie]

If people are concerned with their finances, but don’t care about the moral or social aspect of life, or have no problem with baby killing or perverted sex, or even approve of it, they are nothing but grubby money grubbers and greedy self serving self-absorbed people. Bottom line.
It is perverse to worry about your money or paycheck and taxes and not give a whit about abortion or sexual perversion.

Is that too harsh?
Personally I am so sick of the intolerant ‘tolerant’ crowd I could just puke.

[brucebrucebruceoftheforest]

FU, troll!!

Gee whiz, you make it sound like I'm Pelosi.

It would be better to ignore all of the bait that the MSM is only too happy to report.

The MSM didn't shut you folks up or down and they are royally pissed at that failure.

Don't give them a shot at you from the back.

Just yawn and say something like, "...this is what makes the tea party so great...we all love the Constitution more than any other idea...and we can shuffle away from the self-indulgent self-appointed leaders who want to steal a little face time.

[Reagan Man]

The Tea Party movement feeds off of conservatism.

NOT liberalism or libertarianism.

[ModelBreaker]

At the Federal level, social issues are limited government issues. Roe vs Wade and it’s progeny are an enormous intrusion into the separation of powers conceived by the founders—part of which was delegating most government power to 50 states rather than one federal government. Those “police power” issues were quite clearly reserved to the states in the Constitution. Roe, Lawrence and the like are a gross expansion of Federal power.

Similarly, the forcing of political correctness (”celebrate homos!”, for example) in education by the Feds is another gross expansion of Federal power, brought about by mandates in education bills and departments that are probably unconstitutional, under any reasonable interpretation of the founders’ intentions.

Abortion and “celebrate homos!” should be fought out at the state and local level, not imposed by five unelected federal officials in black robes.

Anyone who does not see this as a fundamental, limited-government, constitutional issue is willfully blind.

[LomanBill]

[He, too, picked the more important battles to wage legislatively.]

 

You mean like that time when...

 

"In 1778, Thomas Jefferson wrote a law in Virginia that contained a punishment of castration for men who engage in rape, polygamy or sodomy.[5]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castration

 

??

[Cobra64]

Jim, I think you may have mis-interpreted my post. My point is that the government should focus on America's fundamental foundation as written in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.

BTW, if you were to review my posts over the last 10 years you will discover that I am extremely Conservative, believe in God, family, and the United States of America. My FR home page illustrates my loyalty to America.

[OrangeHoof]

Great answer. Let’s remove all funding for Planned Parenthood, AIDS research and sex education and then say it’s not about social issues. It’s about fiscal issues and watch how fast they change tack.

[sausageseller]

People want to feel that Republicans are doing what they were elected to do,

You somehow believe they were not elected because of their social agenda? You have completely ignored who helped get them elected.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

So let me get this straight.

The Tea Party shot meteorically in support because it stands for reducing the spending of a bloated, spoon-in-every-pot government.

And now we are supposed to appeal to those who are in the minority and whose financial and social support is through massive government spending and its social regulations?

No thanks.

The Tea Party is the party of the moral majority. We don’t have to make social issues our priority. Just decimating the size of government will go a long way toward saving this republic.

But we sure as hell don’t have to play footsie with those groups who most abhor and ridicule the Tea Party. You know, those groups who refer to us as tea baggers.