VALLEY PATRIOT EDITORIAL
May-2012
Last month Christine Morabito, President of the Greater Boston Tea Party called into WCAP’s Paying Attention Radio Program (980AM) to talk about an explosive and divisive issue facing Tea Parties all over the country: anti-gay (and some would say homophobic) voices within the Tea Party itself.
At issue was what Morabito called “anti-gay” voices that were slated to speak at the Tea Party rally in Boston on April 15th. Morabito asked all members of the Greater Boston Tea Party to boycott that rally and instead attend the Worcester Tea Party rally that day.
The issue was so contentious among individual members of the various Tea Party groups, that it caused a split among those who want the Tea Party to focus on social issues (abortion, gay marriage, etc.) and those who want to stay true to the Tea Party mission: lower taxes, more personal liberty and shrinking the size of government.
What made this debate within the Tea Party fascinating is that if you listen to the news media portrayal of the Tea Party you might think that they are all a bunch of racist, gay-hating, religious kooks.
Yet, here in Massachusetts we had the head of the largest Tea Party organization in the state on a live radio program defending gays from hate and asking for a boycott. That program aired on April 14th.
We at the Valley Patriot are still waiting for the news media to report that story as we enter the second week of May.
If Christine Morabito had called into a radio station and said that gays were “diseased” and could be “cured”, we are sure that it would have been a front page headline in many daily papers. Not so, however, when Ms. Morabito defended gays against hate.
Here is some of what Morabito said, which the Boston Globe and the rest of the media refused to report:
“As far as the gay bashing goes, to get up there and talk about how gays are going to hell and gays can be healed; those things are very hurtful and are absolutely not issues that should be talked about at a Tea Party Rally. At the Tea Party, we have now spent four years trying to prove that we are not hate mongers, we are not bigots, we are not anti-gay, we are not all these negative things that the news media portrays us to be. And what is upsetting to me is that in one felled swoop, this rally happening in Boston can wipe all that away.”
“So, we’ve had to make it very clear at the Greater Boston Tea Party that we are going to be as far away from that rally as possible. I’m not saying that the social issues don’t matter. The social issues matter very much to many individual members of the party. But, those are not issues that we want to be discussing as a Tea Party. Our main issues are fiscal issues; smaller government, individual liberty, free markets, free speech, those issues that unite people and everyone can agree with.”
“In the Tea Party we are full of Independents, libertarians, republicans and we even have recovering Democrats. Fiscal issues can bring all of us together. Why would we want to talk about things that are going to be offensive to some people and turn people away? We want to grow our numbers for a goal. That goal is get people off their couches and stop throwing things at the TV and get out there, let their voices be heard… stand up to politicians who are wasting our tax dollars and not representing us.”
Asked whether she really considered the speakers at the Boston Rally to be “gay bashers” her answer was shocking if all you only knew about the Tea Party from what you saw on the news.
“Yes, and it’s been very disheartening for me to realize that people I thought were in line with me politically and socially, are speaking like this. It’s very hurtful and it has no place in the Tea Party rally. It really bothers me. It’s the Language that they use, some of it is really just ugly.”
Morabito said that one example that has kicked up what she said were “the minority of voices in the Tea Party that are anti-gay” was the very loud opposition to Republican candidate for Congress Richard Tisei.
“We have Richard Tisei who is a fiscal conservative and he is running against Congressman Tierney, whom Tea Party members have nothing but for contempt for. But we have Tea Party members now coming out against Richard Tisei saying they are not going to vote for him. And it’s because Richard is gay. Well I don’t care if he’s gay, he is a fiscal conservative. What good does it do us if we re-elect John Tierney again? I would rather have someone who is with me 90% of the time than a John Tierney. If you can’t look past this one issue of him being gay what does that say?”
“If you take the social issues off the table you realize, we in the Tea Party will be much more represented by a Richard Tisei than a John Tierney.”
We at the Valley Patriot couldn’t agree more with Ms. Morabito on her stand against homophobes and people who are not just “anti-gay marriage” but are outright “anti-gay”. There is a huge difference no matter how much the news media wants you to confuse the two.
What is most distressing is that the people who decide what stories to broadcast or publish in the news have a clear agenda. That agenda is to only portray the Tea Party as a bunch of homophobes, racists, and religious kooks. And while there are individuals who certainly hate within any group of people, Christine Morabito took a brave stand publicly and said “That’s not what we are all about as a Tea Party.”
And while she was being excoriated by the gay haters within the various Tea Party organizations for her public stand, not one news outlet came to the defense of gays who were being bashed, because they didn’t want to give credit to the head of a Tea Party organization.
This is just one more reason why we encourage our readers to think for themselves and question everything you read and see on the “news”.
Because most often, it isn’t really “news” at all that you are consuming.
It’s a fictional narrative.