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According to Chris Johnson of the Washington Blade, “The Tea Party is energizing the Republican Party base and ousting incumbent GOP lawmakers from Congress, focused on economic issues and limited government rather than anti-gay rhetoric in its bid for growth and acceptance.” A number of gay conservatives have abandoned their usual posts with Log Cabin Republican groups and decided that there is room for everyone in the Tea Party. Recently a convention called HomoCon, a group for gay conservatives touted that Ann Coulter would be headlining their event. This caused riffs with traditional Republicans who wish to exclude gays and lesbians from the Tea Party – organizations like WorldNetDaily, a dot com who attempts to harness the Tea Party movement and make it a members only affair. The picture that’s being painted here is one of anti-gay rhetoric being tossed into the vat of failed Republican Party politics and the Tea Party being a possible solution for gay conservatives who wish to have their voices heard. Indeed, at the National Equality March in October of 2009, there was a 150 foot banner held up by Tea Party Patriots which read “Teabaggers For Gay Rights”. One of the Patriots holding up her section of the banner appeared to be an African-American transgender woman. The term “teabaggers” was at first an accidental term that the Tea Party started using as a self-descriptor – until it was revealed that the word “teabagging” was already a slang term for “the dragging of one’s testicles (usually by an erotic dancer) across the forehead of an onlooker”. One cannot help but notice how many tea-related slang terms have vastly different meanings in gay culture. Some fiscally conservative gay rights supporters have humorously embraced these double entendres, like the group at the National Equality March. In the Washington Blade article, Johnson points out that Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski (R) supported inclusion of hate crime laws (like the Mathew Shepard Act) while her Palin-backed Tea Party opponent in the primary election did not. Murkowski was caught off guard by Palin's sudden support of the more conservative Miller. But here in Florida a transgender Tea Party candidate named Donna Milo, although she did not win either, scored a quarter of the Republican Primary vote in elections last month in a 3 way race. No transgender candidate was ever known to have run as a Republican for a congressional seat before and so earning that many votes in a primary is quite significant. Another example of open doors in the Tea Party movement for gays and lesbians is the fact that one of the most admired leaders among them – Fox News star Glenn Beck – has voiced some support for gay marriage. But ultimately – the Democratic Party, which has held the gay vote captive for many years is not going to let go of one of their key demographics very easily. Congress has an LGBT Equality Caucus now that is comprised of 81 Democrats and only one single Republican. That Republican is Illeana Ross-Lehtinen of Florida. While she has received some criticism for her participation in the Equality Caucus, she has also maintained a Republican presence in government where it ordinarily would not exist. Key liberal Democrats have been unwilling to attack Ross-Lehtinen and moved on to skewer other GOP party leaders. http://www.southfloridagaynews.com/news/139-politics/2071-is-there-a-gay-tea-par… added by: congoboy