“Tea Party” Activists Tell Republicans: Ignore Abortion, Social Issues

The fiscally conservative tea party activists were crucial to electing pro-life candidates in the 2010 mid-term elections, but a group or groups of activists are now trying to co-opt the tea party successes by calling on Republicans in Congress to avoid social issues like abortion.

In a letter released earlier this week, according to Politico, representatives of a gay Republican group, say they want Republicans in Congress to lay off social issues.

Some of the signers of the letter, Politico indicates, include gay group GOProud’s chairman Christopher Barron, libertarian host Tammy Bruce, bloggers Bruce Carroll, Dan Blatt and Doug Welch. Do you recognize ANY of these people as tea party activists?

That letter to pro-life presumptive House Speaker John Boehner and pro-life Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell comes at the same time as leading pro-life organizations are calling for a vote on a bill that would stop all federal funding for abortion, including in the ObamaCare health care law.

Christopher Barron claims “No one has been talking about social issues – not even the socially conservative candidates who won tea party support,” despite the prominence of the abortion-funding aspects of ObamaCare in defeating many of the pro-abortion Democrats who lost two weeks ago.

Barron doesn’t want pro-life advocates to promote legislation in Congress, yet he told Politico, “We’re not talking about pushing social conservatives out of the tea party movement. Those people aren’t only welcome but they’re a critical part of this movement.” Really, Mr. Barron? Do you think that YOU are the tea party movement? Do you think that you speak for the tea party movement?

Two leading pro-life organizations issued a swift response to the letter, which calls for ignoring social issues like abortion in exchange for focusing on the economy.

Concerned Women for America leader Penny Nance told LifeNews.com that social issues shouldn’t be set aside and, instead, should share an equal level of important with fiscal issues in the next session of Congress.

“Social issues should be at the very top of the list of priorities for the new Congress, along with sensible fiscal policies,” she said.

Nance says internal post-election polling her organization conducted showed American voters in the mid-term elections were enthusiastic about pro-life and other social issues as much as they were the economy.

“Americans voted overwhelmingly for both social and fiscal conservatives, and it would be unwise to throw social policies to the wayside and snub the voters who sent a strong message to the new Congress that they want both pro-life and fiscally conservative policies. In our post-election poll, when asked to name the biggest issue facing future generations, 62 percent of voters said it is the moral decline of our nation,” she said.

Kristan Hawkins, the director of Students for Life of America, also told LifeNews.com she is upset by the letter the GOProud organizers signed.

“Tea party leaders who have called for Congress to ignore social issues are forgetting how important the pro-life issue is, especially after the passage of Obamacare,” she said. “What these leaders fail to realize is that protecting the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception is the first responsibility of government.”

Last week, Concerned Women for America sent a memo to Republican leaders outlining three specific priorities the new Congress must address in the wake of the first pro-life majority in the House since Roe v. Wade.

 “There was a net 52-seat pro-life gain in the House of Representatives, an unprecedented statement that voters reject taxpayer-funded abortion and want a more conservative, pro-life legislature moving forward.  Now is not the time for Republicans to back away from their own party’s foundational social issues,” she concluded.

If we do not stand for the protection of the unborn, for the sanctity of life, we stand for nothing.

Ed Randazzo