A Word on Social Issues

In light of controversies popping up around the movement, I thought I should cross post this here.


Look at any social issue category under the sun and you can find a place for it under the Tea Party umbrella. Second Amendment rights in danger? Tea Party stands with you. Federal dollars doled out for funding abortions? Tea Party is on to that, too. Ministers in danger of being silenced in the pulpit for hate speech? Tea Party has got your back.

Here’s where quite a few people miss the power of the movement: some don’t want to sit at the same table with others who have opposing views on social issues, EVEN IF it meant that by working together they multiplied their effectiveness on the fiscal ones. It’s my personal opinion that if all the people who want government out of their lives as much as possible WORK TOGETHER, they can achieve that far more easily than if they worked separately on their own issue. The focus is narrow, and the application is wide. That wide application means that a Tea Party rally can bring thousands together to support a single cause. And the thousands, if they hold together, can return again and again, to Downtown Houston, to Austin’s Capitol, to the nation’s Capital until the elected officials and the media start listening!

It’s so exciting when you picture it! We can build a movement that the GOVERNMENT can be afraid of, not the other way around! We can take back all the power stolen from us, if we just stay together! Imagine the issues that divided the founding fathers, and how they still managed to build a federation of states and a form of government that still promotes freedom, if we will just fight for it. Benjamin Franklin said it best at the signing of the Declaration of Independence:

“We must all hang together, gentlemen…else, we shall most assuredly hang separately”

We have to develop that attitude if we are going to continue to collectively take the Tea Party movement into the faces of the elected officials who are grabbing power as fast as they can. If you join Tea Party with your particular issue, understand that not everyone will share it. Others in the movement will hold views completely opposite to yours on particular issues. At the same time, realize that you WILL find people who feel the same way you do, and seek them out and work together on that issue. And remember that every person who joins the movement for fiscal responsibility is an ally in that cause! If we start pulling apart because pro-lifers are in the same room as pro-choicers, or because gay members are in the same room with traditional marriage advocates, WE’RE LOST!

Let’s keep the focus: stopping government overreach and promoting fiscal responsibility. No, these issues aren’t as “sexy” as some others, and they require some thought, some education, some reason and some effort that we haven’t centered in that direction as a nation in a long time. It won’t be easy. But it will be worth it!