TEA PARTIES AND THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT

"The rise of a new conservative grass-roots fueled by a secular revulsion at government spending is stirring fears among leaders of the old conservative grass-roots, the evangelical Christian right.

A reeling economy and the Obama administration’s massive bank bailout and stimulus plan were the triggers for a resurgence in support for the Republican Party and the rise of the tea party movement. But they’ve also banished the social issues that are the focus of many evangelical Christians to the background...

...“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

No it doesn't. The Tea Party movement needs to attract as many people as possible to it. People that believe in limited government and personal freedom. It needs to keep its focus on political and economic freedom to the exclusion of all else because without those nothing else matters. If we allow government to have the power of life and death over us we won't be able to make the decisions about morality and other social issues. They will be shoved down our throats, just like the Democrats are attempting to do with health care.

Last summer I went to a bunch of local Tea Party rallies, some in St. Louis and some in Franklin County. The rallies in St. Louis were secular political affairs and completely focused on the political problems at hand. The rallies in Franklin County, especially one I attended in Union, were highly sectarian. So much so that I was compelled to write a letter about it to the director of the local organizing group, The Franklin County Patriots.

Speeches in Union were political but also contained a religious element that I found counterproductive. A couple speakers, I assume believing they were at some sort of fundamentalist tent meeting, felt compelled to give testimony to their relationship with Jesus. As a person of faith myself I wasn't particularly offended. However, having grown up with a whole bunch of Jewish friends I had to wonder how this potentially divisive declaration of faith served the greater purpose of returning the government to its Constitutional level? Why alienate any group that shares the core political belief?

And this is something that always bothered me about the "religious right". In the end this movement seemed less about freedom and more about imposing certain doctrines on the people. I always have believed that if some leaders of this movement had gained power we would have been turned into a sort of theocracy, mingling the state in the church in exactly the manner that the First Amendment was written to prevent. I have always sensed in the "religious right" a tendency towards real fascism, in some ways the kind the left always screams about.

I understand that this country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles and that most of the Founders were Christian. I know that at the state level some of the Founders even supported state religions. All that aside though, they did create a federal Constitution and political system that has done a remarkable job of maintaining ecclesiastical neutrality. Any movement meant to restore the federal government to its Constitutional basis has to do the same.

Let the social issues be argued at the state level where they belong. I don't want big government from the right or the left having any part of my life at the national level. Keep the social issues out of the Tea Party movement and keep its focus on the bigger picture.