NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, an anti-gay, religion-based group, applauded a New York Times op-ed which effectively labels the Tea Party as racist anti-Constutionalists. The op-ed, titled, “Crashing The Tea Party,†reviewed today by tNCRM in a post titled, ‘The Tea Party Is On Life-Support. Researchers Explain Why,” portrays the Tea Party as racist and insistent upon knocking down the centuries-old separation of church and state the First Amendment of the Constitution demands.
In a blog post, “Scholars Reveal: Tea Partiers ARE Religious Conservatives!,” NOM writes, “This is not news to anyone on the right, but the New York Times just discovered:
Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious†elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government.
This inclination among the Tea Party faithful to mix religion and politics explains their support for Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. Their appeal to Tea Partiers lies less in what they say about the budget or taxes, and more in their overt use of religious language and imagery, including Mrs. Bachmann’s lengthy prayers at campaign stops and Mr. Perry’s prayer rally in Houston.
NOM’s usual modus operandi is to cherry-pick the portions they like best, and this two-paragraph pablum fed to their minions is no different.
But the two researchers who wrote the Times op-ed also write, “the Tea Party is increasingly swimming against the tide of public opinion,” “Polls show that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing,” and, perhaps most-ironically, the Harvard and Notre Dame research team writes that the Tea Party “is even less popular than much maligned groups like ‘atheists’ and ‘Muslims.’ Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.” The Christian Right represents the base of the National Organization For Marriage.
NOM quotes this paragraph:
“Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious†elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government,”
but leaves out the previous one:
“So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.”
In other words, Tea Partiers are racists.
NOM quotes this paragraph:
“This inclination among the Tea Party faithful to mix religion and politics explains their support for Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. Their appeal to Tea Partiers lies less in what they say about the budget or taxes, and more in their overt use of religious language and imagery, including Mrs. Bachmann’s lengthy prayers at campaign stops and Mr. Perry’s prayer rally in Houston,”
but leaves out the next one:
“Yet it is precisely this infusion of religion into politics that most Americans increasingly oppose. While over the last five years Americans have become slightly more conservative economically, they have swung even further in opposition to mingling religion and politics. It thus makes sense that the Tea Party ranks alongside the Christian Right in unpopularity,”
and the next one:
“On everything but the size of government, Tea Party supporters are increasingly out of step with most Americans, even many Republicans. Indeed, at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, today’s Tea Party parallels the anti-Vietnam War movement which rallied behind George S. McGovern in 1972. The McGovernite activists brought energy, but also stridency, to the Democratic Party — repelling moderate voters and damaging the Democratic brand for a generation. By embracing the Tea Party, Republicans risk repeating history.”
Any questions?