Battle Begins Over Whether Tea-Party Backed Election Winners Will Take on Social Issues

A gay Republican group and some Tea Party organizers want GOP leaders in the new Congress to concentrate on fiscal issues and not social ones such as same-sex marriage and abortion. “On behalf of limited-government conservatives everywhere, we write to urge you and your colleagues in Washington to put forward a legislative agenda in the next Congress that reflects the principles of the Tea Party movement,” reads a letter addressed to presumptive House Speaker John Boehner and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell. “This election was not a mandate for the Republican Party, nor was it a mandate to act on any social issue,” said the letter, released Monday by GOProud, a group that “represents gay conservatives and their allies.” Signatories include leadership of GOProud and Ralph King, a Tea Party organizer in Ohio who is on the leadership council of the Tea Party Patriots. Among other signatories to the GOProud-initiated letter are Tea Party coordinators from Maines, Arizona, Nebraska, Montana, Maryland, Illinois, Idaho, Florida and California. In response to the letter Penny Nance, CEO of Concerned Women for America, said social issues should be a priority of the 112th Congress...