Last week we noted that a Tea Party rally scheduled for this weekend in Massachusetts collapsed after several speakers dropped out due to MassResistance's Brian Camenker scheduled participation.
Needless to say, Camenker is absolutely outraged, noting that he has been a speaker at several Tea Parties rallies before and was even invited "to an exclusive Tea Party breakfast with Sen. Scott Brown."
Camenker partially blames the Southern Poverty Law Center's designation of MassResistance as a hate group for the debacle, but reserves most of the blame for Christen Varley, a rival Tea Party leader:
MassResistance has talked to several people and gotten first-hand accounts of what happened.
It apparently started with Christen Varley, head of the "Greater Boston Tea Party", a different Tea Party organization than the Lexington group. Varley is also an employee of Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI), a "moderate" pro-family group, through an MFI affiliate that consults with political candidates. (Some would say that is a conflict of interest.) She also has strong ties to the state Republican establishment.
This week Varley contacted the Lexington Tea Party's speakers and advised them -- in fairly strong terms -- not to appear if Camenker was included ... Unlike other Tea Party leaders around the country, Varley is well-liked by the mainstream media. She's considered sensible and moderate by the establishment press. (Not like the other Tea Party "rabble" which the media have only contempt for.) As head of the Greater Boston Tea Party she's had numerous friendly articles published about her in the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, and even the Wall Street Journal, as well as many "softball" local radio interviews.
By her own admission, Varley tries to exclude discussion of "social issues" from all of her Tea Party events. It's all about fiscal issues, she says.
Hostility to the parents' rights movement. Last year Varley invited MassResistance to speak at one of her Tea Party events, but under the condition that we did not talk about the homosexual agenda in schools. After we refused and told others about her restriction, Varley left several angry phone messages at our office, referring to parents who were battling the gay agenda in the schools as "nut jobs."
Camenker then lists the participants who dropped out by name in a "Hall of shame" before concluding that the entire thing is "an absolute disgrace, and represents the worst kind of anti-family RINO sleaziness":
We have never seen anything like this deliberately done to a Tea Party anywhere in America. It's an absolute disgrace, and represents the worst kind of anti-family RINO sleaziness. There are hundreds of thousands (and this year possibly millions) of taxpayer dollars going directly to the radical homosexual / transgender agenda in our schools to target children in Massachusetts. The idea that this should not be challenged at Tea Parties -- and that those who do speak out should be demonized -- is beyond offensive.
