After a letter signed by a handful of Tea Party activists made national headlines for its request to downplay social issues like abortion, a new letter signed by Tea Party Nation leaders goes the other direction.
The Tennessee-based tea party group led by National Tea Party Convention organizer Judson Phillips has a new letter and a list of action items that reflects the views of pro-life advocates.
Calling for the dismantling of the “liberal-political complex,” the new letter, addressed to Sen. Mitch McConnell and Speaker-elect John Boehner, calls for dismantling ObamaCare and its abortion-funding provisions and de-funding the Planned Parenthood abortion business.
“America is a conservative country. We expect conservative leadership,” the more than 185 tea party activists who signed this new letter say.
Last week a dozen Tea Party activists signed on to a letter to Congress urging them to abandon social issues and focus exclusively on economic matters. The letter was sponsored by the homosexual rights advocacy group GOProud.
Tea Party Nation says that letter came from “non-Tea Party, non-conservatives … trying to claim leadership of the Tea Party movement.”
The new Tea Party Nation’s letter is signed by 180 tea party activists and that includes about a dozen members of the Tennessee-based Sumner County group SURG and several more from a Greencastle, Indiana tea party group.
The letter was posted Monday on teapartynation.com and Judson Phillips, who wrote the letter, told WorldNetDaily the signers represent a variety of groups.
“Tea Party Nation is a significant minority of signers,” Phillips told WND. “We also got signatures from a lot of Tea Party groups, many groups from New England, North Carolina Freedom, and some 9-12 groups. The final tally was about 185, but we could have added 60 or 70 more.”
“We had to define who speaks for the movement,” said Phillips. “It’s got to be Tea Party groups that speak for this movement, and GOProud is not in the movement. They never have been and are not a part of the movement.”
“Last Monday, a small group of non-Tea Party, non-conservatives, released a letter, trying to claim leadership of the Tea Party movement and purporting to tell you what the Tea Party movement wants,” the letter begins.
“We, the undersigned, are leaders of mainstream Tea Party groups. We are the people that helped get conservatives elected on November 2. While we do not speak for this movement as a whole, we are a large cross section of this movement and we want to tell you what this movement wants,” the letter continues.
