Tea Party vs. The Christian Right

Tea Party vs. The Christian Right.

In an article from politico.com written by Ben Smith, he highlights a growing problem that has been running rampant since even before the Tea Party movement formed last April 15th. The concern of the Evangelical Christian Right is that the Tea Party or the political road warriors thereof are abandoning their legacy of social values and social responsibility, namely the gay marriage issue and right to life.

The question here… Is this really a problem or rather a manufactured problem by media and big government conservatives working to spell dissension among the ranks of the ‘Big Tent’ Republican Party?

From personal experience, I’d say on social issues they would have very little to worry about as many people involved within the Tea Party are social conservatives even though their leadership may not be. On top of that, politicians know they can’t win w/o the Christian Right and therefore, their social issues will not be abandoned, at least not completely at the very least. Respect will be paid in elections, even if that's not the presiding issue.

The front and center galvanizing issue for the Tea Party movement is fiscal responsibility. Fiscal responsibility has always been a core issues for conservative candidates and a rallying point for most independents. However, the Evangelical Christian movement from the ‘90s brought about Big Government conservatism putting fiscal issues on the back burner and placing social issues front and center. We must remember, it took Nixon to bring the Evangelical Christians into the Big Tent tearing them away from the Southern Democratic machine in his run for President in 1968. The Evangelical Christian movement is rooted in Big Government having risen from the Democratic Party. Essentially, I feel their real cause for ALARM stems from the Libertarian bend that the Tea Party has taken which threatens their Big Government conservatism more than it actually threatens their social conservative issue agenda. So let’s not confuse what the heart of the issue really is.

“There’s a libertarian streak in the tea party movement that concerns me as a cultural conservative,” said Bryan Fischer, director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy at the American Family Association. “The tea party movement needs to insist that candidates believe in the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage.” (Politico.com, 2010).

And then this…

“Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee denounced the conference [CPAC – Conservative Political Action Conference] (with whose organizers he has feuded in the past) as a gathering that had become “increasingly more libertarian and less Republican.” (Politico.com, 2010).

What cool heads may offer as a solution would more than likely fall on deaf ears within the Christian Right Leadership. Number one, do not fear Gay Conservatives. The issue of Gay Marriage can be a touchy subject and for the most part with the exception of their homosexuality, Gay Conservatives would be considered very moral people by even Christian standards. Morality, and this is a debatable subject, is not something that through legislation a problem will be solved or diminished for that matter. Morality is derived from your friends, family and neighbors that you keep. As we know through evidence of our overcrowded prison system, legislating morality will not solve the problem, but in some cases causes crime to rise via organized crime and creates a burden on the tax payer.

A true Christian approach would be to befriend them, let them know God loves them, forgives them and welcomes them if they will have Him. Then as a Christian, we must realize at the end on judgment day, what any person has done is between them and God and has nothing to do with us. Here on Earth, we should apply our moral objection and bear wittness but not stand in judgment of another, as God commands, for an act that in the end harms themselves and no one else. Simplified, Conservatives who take a moral objection will never win them over by making their morally culpable (not legally) acts illegal. We as Christians win people over through acts of love and kindness not by a stick using government on our behalf.

Therefore, let God stand in judgment, not yourself. I have no problem in working with homosexual people, politically and professionally, so long as they do not wrap their agenda with socialist mantra. There is more common ground with that culture if we can get past judging them and placing our moral standards upon them through legislation. Then within that that culture you may find that the right to life issue may be an area they may very well side with conservatives and thus improving the Big Tent.

The only real issue they have against us is that they are the, 'small dose socialists' of which fund the root problems of our economical system in that they employ their big government agenda through small dose socialism, something I've been warning everyone about. But, if they choose to make those social issues their own galvanizing issues of whether they side with conservatives or not, they do the party a disservice to the Big Tent idea and the ability to form influenetial caucus within. The silly part about this is, they really have nothing to fear for most Libertarian leaning Republican Candidates will side with their social agenda, it just wouldn't be a center stone of their campaign or top on their agenda. But it will be incorporated in. So which side is really hurting the party more as we have bore wittness to the attacks against the Tea Partiers on this blog before? But like I've said, silly right winged nut, solvency is for Morons.


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