Tea Partiers Show True Colors

Over the last few days of the health care debate, members of the Tea Party movement have gone out of their way to show their true colors. Unfortunately, those colors don’t make a rainbow.

In recent days, Tea Party organizers have taken pains to point out the diversity of their movement, and their disinterest in social issues. As they work on the Contract from America, a 21st-Century update of the 1994 Contract with America that swept Republicans into control of the House of Representatives, they say they want to create a “big tent” filled with all kinds of economic conservatives. Accomplishing this means setting those pesky social issues, like abortion, gay rights, and race relations, aside.

As Ryan Hecker, organizer behind the Contract from America, points out:

We should be creating the biggest tent possible around the economic conservative issue . . . To include social issues would be beside the point.”

Really, now. Shall we look at reality?

First national convention, keynote speaker: Christian Dominionist Sarah Palin, who asked for “divine intervention” to lead the nation. Baptist Pastor Rick Scarborough conducted an “Organized Prayer Session for the convention and our nation” and also led a discussion session entitled, “Why Christians Must Engage”.

Another top speaker? Judge Roy Moore, from Alabama. We told you about Roy Moore some time ago, when Chuck Norris endorsed him:

Moore may be best known as the Alabama Chief Justice who was removed from office in 2001. Why? He refused to obey a Federal court order to remove a granite Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama State Supreme Court’s Rotunda. Moore became a hero to the religious right.

However, he didn’t need to lose his job to attain Bigotry Party standing. This is a judge who believes, just like some folks in Uganda, that homosexuals should be jailed or executed.

A part of one of his court decisions,

I write specially to state that the homosexual conduct of a parent — conduct involving a sexual relationship between two persons of the same gender — creates a strong presumption of unfitness that alone is sufficient justification for denying that parent custody of his or her own children or prohibiting the adoption of the children of others . . . Homosexual conduct is, and has been, considered abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature and of nature’s God upon which this Nation and our laws are predicated . . . It is an inherent evil against which children must be protected . . . The State carries the power of the sword, that is, the power to prohibit conduct with physical penalties, such as confinement and even execution. It must use that power to prevent the subversion of children toward this lifestyle, to not encourage a criminal lifestyle.

The organizers, in spite of their quotes for the New York Times, don’t seem to be doing a good job of avoiding social issues. In fact, they don’t really seem to be trying. And the rank-and-file know it.

This past Saturday, the Tea Party Gang had a protest at the Capitol. Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minnesota) and actor Jon Voight spoke to the crowd, who were then to lobby members of the House of Representatives.

Instead of behaving in a dignified manner, a mob of Tea Party protesters , spotting openly-gay Congressman Barney Frank, began him a “Homo Communist” and told to “go homo to Massachusetts”.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus fared even worse.

Rep. Andre Carson (D-Indiana) and Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia) reported threats and racial slurs. Specifically, the crowd was chanting “kill the bill”. Lewis informed the crowd he was supporting the bill. The new chant, described as “a chorus”?

“Kill the bill, then kill the nigger.”

Now, that there is some serious class. But wait, there’s more!

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri), was following a short distance behind. The crowd demonstrated their Tea Party grasp of social graces by spitting on him.

Behind the “non-social” facade lies a truly anti-social movement. Peregrin Wood sums up the “real” Tea Party thus:

it’s become quite clear that the Tea Party movement is not interested in constructing responsible government so much as it is in dismantling and disrespecting the fundamental American values that they emulate only in name. The Tea Party claims to want to start a revolution like the one in 1776, but unlike the revolution of 1776, a Tea Party revolution would reduce liberty and smash the proud American tradition of representative government in favor of laissez faire for big business and Jim Crow for cultural and ethnic minorities.

Let me leave you with this heartwarming video of Tea Party protesters greeting a health reform supporter with Parkinson’s disease.

Update: Wonkette reports that the bill-tossing “gentleman” in the video, one Chris Reichert, denied having done what he was captured on video doing for three entire days. Then,

“Reichert” says he has no idea why he did this, or why he denied it, and actually doesn’t even know why he was at the rally. It’s all a mystery!

But after millions of people watched his foul outburst, he is terrified of the Internet, so now he has made a donation (three wadded-up dollar bills?) to some Parkinson’s charity, you know, “that starts the healing process.” He actually said that, to a newspaper reporter. Fucking idiot.

Related articles:

1. Poll: Tea Partiers aren’t libertarian but Religious Right
2. Eagle Forum Leader Tells Tea Partiers to "Buy More Guns!"
3. Quebec demands Muslim women show faces
4. Phillips: Hearings On Oil Company Subsidies Just Like Soviet Show Trials
5. The true face of faith healing

Jenny Donati is webmistress and co-editor of Secular News Daily. Jenny is an outspoken secularist who believes firmly in the separation of church and state. She demands evidence to support arguments, and holds herself to the same standard. She doesn't write about herself in the third person . . . but there's a first time for everything.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry.