I blogged the following two days ago in the wake of the Massachusetts DOMA rulings:
As I had said all through the great gay marriage tsunami of years past: States have no "rights." Only individuals have rights. States have powers — powers that they can and do abuse. The question of how social issues, especially gay marriage, will impact the Tea Party movement, is not only unanswered but has been insolently ignored by both those inside and outside the movement. That ends now. (And, as the race to make "yeah, but…" seem non-hypocritical begins, I think it will not end well for the Tea Partiers.
The silence continues to deafen:
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.
No rights. Powers. Abuse. Etc.
"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."
Everett Wilkinson, state director for the Florida Tea Party Patriots, agreed: "On the issue [of gay marriage] itself, we have no stance, but any time a state's rights or powers are encouraged over the federal government, it is a good thing."
What kind of party (or movement or whatever), especially one that claims to be radically transforming the political landscape at the most basic constitutional and philosophical levels, "does not take a position on social issues"? Setting priorities is one thing; fingers-in-ears la-la-la chanting is something else entirely.
Keep in mind that this phenomenon is not an inconsistent message within the movement, comparable to Dixiecrats or Rockefeller Republicans. It's a perfectly consistent absence of a message. Indeed, it appears some Tea Partiers actually conflate the two and boast that "the lack of a message is the message" (or: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna think about this anymore!!!") Again, good luck "radically transforming the political landscape at the most basic constitutional and philosophical levels" with that.
This vapid tunnel vision is, of course, to be expected, since the Tea Party's positions (again, is the plural "positions" even appropriate?) are based on no true theory of law or politics. The Tenth Amendment argument upon which the Tea Party now relies was a total afterthought, a means to an end, an excuse.
This is exactly why libertarians should avoid the Tea Party, at least for now. Libertarianism is a philosophy (with an associated school of jurisprudence and a theory of constitutional interpretation that consists of more than, "Tenth Amendment – Fuck Yeah!").
Libertarianism is a philosophy that, hopefully, can be and is applied consistently across all or most policy issues. It is, contrary to the kindergarten screeches of some, more than a loose collection of "conservatives who want to smoke pot." Compare and contrast that to the Tea Party, a loose collection of "conservatives who sorta kinda think that the Tenth Amendment sorta kinda means something, sometimes."
Incidentally, another reason that libertarians should avoid the Tea Party, just like they should have avoided the vulgar anti-gay bigot Ron Paul, was that even if the Tea Partiers do think that the Tenth Amendment sorta kinda means something, sometimes, there is no evidence whatsoever that they think the Fourteenth Amendment ever means anything. No rights. Powers. Abuse. Etc.
More thoughts at gaypolitics.com.