Tea party groups choose to stand mute on same-sex marriage ruling

While many conservative organizations immediately decried a federal judge's decision last week to invalidate the federal ban on recognizing gay marriages, tea party groups have been conspicuously silent on the issue.

The silence is by design, activists with the loosely affiliated movement said, because it is held together by an exclusive focus on fiscal matters and its avoidance of divisive social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Privately, though, many said they back the decision because it emphasizes the legal philosophy of states' rights.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro in Boston struck down parts of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which for federal purposes defines a marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Tauro agreed with Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley that marriages should be defined by the state, and that the law violated the Constitution's 10th Amendment, which grants to states jurisdiction over matters not explicitly given to the federal government.

"I do think it's a state's right," said Phillip Dennis, Texas state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots. The group does not take a position on social issues, he said, but personally, "I believe that if the people in Massachusetts want gay people to get married, then they should allow it, just as people in Utah do not support abortion. They should have the right to vote against that."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/13/AR2010071301436.html

It seems they're willing to keep their aim on one issue: fiscal responsibility, at least how they define it. At this point in the game, they're trying to be big tent.

Once they get a few of their nutjobs in Congress (like Rand Paul, for instance) they will have to compromise with the religious right to get a few things done. They'll be exposed for the hacks that they are in the next two years, and the American public will be ready for grown-ups to come back to Washington, D. C. in the 2012 election. The bright side is that the tea partiers will simply kick out the Blue Dogs who have tenaciously held on to their seats, and we can replace them in 2012 with candidates who are more progressive.

:shrug:

to really bash the tea partiers outside of safe Democratic places. The folks in the mushy middle still haven't figured out that they can't govern, but I think they'll be exposed to tea party lunacy in the next two years. Right now, the tea baggers have figured out how to stay on message, but as soon as they are expected to actually do something, they'll be incapable. And the stuff they try to do will be ridiculous, it will take a lot of heat off of the President for the next two years.

If every DINO in Congress was replaced by a tea partier, we'd come back to resounding success in 2012 with a greater chance of having progressive candidates in seats currently held by long term Blue Dogs.

In short, no, I'm not kidding. We're going to suffer some losses in November, it's better that they actually go our way. President Obama has accomplished quite a bit legislatively, it just needs more time to work. By November, 2012, he'll be given credit for everything the tea partiers will have spent the previous couple of years trying unsuccessfully to thwart.

They deserve no respect at all... did I wake up in bizarro world today or what?

I just said that it's premature to label them as stupid to the general public. We're guaranteed to have a few high profile ones in elective office for at least the next couple of years, the media will be all over them as soon as their lunacy is on full display.

Right now, they're being careful to try to keep to one central message, and that message is finding some sympathy with those in the mushy middle who are starting to freak out about the Obama Administration. Everybody in flyover country knows a tea party sympathizer, and just labeling them racists for opposing the President is going to backfire on us.

There's a time and a place for everything, it's usually fruitless to attempt to crush a movement in its infancy in a democracy. It just makes them stronger.

And bizarre.

I'm just waiting for them to make enough rope to hang themselves. Like I said, it's inevitable that some of them will find their way to elected office, then the time for criticism of them will be most ripe.

At this point, they're focused enough to stay on message. They can't keep that luxury after they have to start casting votes.

if same sex marriage is left up to the states not subject to federal overruling, how is that beneficial? Every state that has put it to a vote has resulted in a complete rejection of equal rights. The handful of states that permit it were put in that legal position by courts and I think one by legislature and there are STILL challenges to those...leaving it up to states is going to cause more prejudice and bigotry than it would ever solve...or am I completely missing something here??????????//

The full-faith-and-credit clause of the Constitution. Right now, one-half of the states prohibit first-cousin marriage, the other half allows it, sometimes under special circumstances. What happens when married first cousins from a state such as New York (you just thought they were down South, now didn't you??!!) move to a prohibited state like Kentucky (oops, there's another stereotype that just fell apart!)? That's right, they're still recognized as married.

Once DOMA is found to be un-Constitutional, then same-gender couples can go to Iowa, etc., get married, and come back to the states with stains on their constitutions, and have legally recognized marriages. Loving vs. Virginia already established that prohibitions on interracial marriage would not stand. Applying that decision's reasoning to equal marriage, we get the desired result.

Scalia was right years ago when he predicted that Lawrence vs. Texas would open the legal floodgates to same-sex marriage. Once it became legal for consenting adults to do what they wanted, the rest of the freedoms naturally will follow.

I'm not all that sanguine about how equitably it would or will be applied. I seem to recall several states decriminalizing marijuana possession in the late 20th century but as far as I know people are still being prosecuted for it...hell, not only in 'other' states, but in those that putatively more or less legalized it. I guess I have more faith and credit in the Constitution than do some of the people charged with implementing it. shrug.

not the individual states

The reason why people are still prosecuted for possessing marijuana in states that legalize it is because there's a federal law against it, and federal law is superior to state law, unless the constitution says otherwise.

Controlling the use of marijuana and other illegal substances isn't something that's been traditionally handled by the states, it's the federal government that usually says what is and isn't legal there.

Marriage on the other hand, is something that's usually handled by states, until DOMA the federal government never really got involved in marriages, other then giving people tax/etc benefits for being married, but never in deciding what marriages are valid or not.

Marriage is handled the same as driver's licenses, you could say. Each state has their own requirements for you to pass a driver's exam, some require 6 months of driving, others less, others more, whatever those requirements are however, each state must recongize driver's licenses issues by other states. It's the same way with marriage, the state set the laws and requirements to get married, not the federal government. DOMA is unconstitutional because it says the federal government won't recognize gay marriages, and because it says other states don't have to recognize gay marriages either, a violation of the full faith and credit clause of the constitution as someone else here mentioned already mentioned.

in the USA are done under the purview of state laws...federal cases have been very rare for the last 40 or so years.
What the Constitution means is for better or worse, exactly what the Supreme Court says it means. I will applaud them for decisions like Lawrence vs. Texas and condemn them for Bush vs. Gore. It's just that I'm nervous about the potential upshot of the inevitable challenge to them on this case, and Prop 8 in California. I guess hope for the best and prepare for the worst is the only sensible path...

It's just a matter of time....

Wait for it......it's coming. They will have a problem going anti-Constitution but they will try to find an insane response.

Like some other parties I know.

it should NOT be a states right issue to determine AT ALL.

Is interracial marriage a state's right? Allowing or denying a class of people marriage according to a state provision is what we do if we need to protect one of the parties in marriage from harm.

We deny marriage licenses based on age, blood relation (in some states), and a host of other reasons we view as leading to a defective or dangerous or legally unsanctionable or otherwise undesirable union.

To put same gender marriage in that class of consideration is to consider it an issue, and not a civil right.