As American elections are heating up, we requested and the Tea Party's Ralph Benko responded in a special to The Balkan Chronicle on his view of the American Tea Party movement's position on Muslims and Islam:

To Bigotry No Sanction

There are some who claim, and even believe, that the Tea Party is suffused with intolerance. Untrue. This writer is strongly, and proudly, associated with the Tea Party Patriots — the largest and most authentic of the several Tea Party Groups, with over 3,000 chapters and almost 800,000 people on its Facebook group. He served as co-Emcee of the July 4th 2009 Boston Tea Party, addressed the April 16th 2011 rally of the Tea Party at the Iowa Capitol, and provided a breakout session at the first American Summit of the Tea Party Patriots in Phoenix, Arizona in February 2011 and is closely associated with the current, ongoing Tea Party Bus Tour statewide in Iowa.

As I wrote in one of my weekly columns for Forbes.com

As a proud, card-carrying, rally-going member of the Tea Party Patriots ..., I have noticed how quickly some Progressives are to label us as racists. They genuinely believe, or at least suspect, that the Tea Parties are partly a reaction to the United States' first African-American president, Barack Obama.

The quickest way to get kicked out of the Tea Party Patriots is to express any sign of racial animus. Since the TPP is by far the largest ... most active and most authentic of all of the Tea Party groups, our public and vehemently enforced anti-racism policy is no small thing.

Yet my left-leaning friends are groping for the answer to a very interesting question: Why now?

Why now? Because, barely noticed by the political and media elites--world peace is breaking out. This is a tectonic shift in world culture, one that transcends left vs. right.

For almost 50 years--from the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, until the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989--the U.S. was beset by mortal enemies. It was an era of guerre a outrance, or war without limit, with Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers, and then the Soviet Union and its satellites, threatening America's and the West's liberal democratic values and our, and our allies', very existence.

Now that epoch has ended. But cultural shifts take time: A country that has been at war for generations does not lower its guard quickly.

Shortly after peace began to dawn, dawn was clouded by the infamous 9/11 attacks. Having only recently emerged from an epoch of total war, the U.S. responded by going on to a total-war footing. We reacted by invading Afghanistan and then Iraq (which had methodically given out the misinformation that it possessed of weapons of mass destruction). At home we created the Department of Homeland Security and its most visible, and recently controversial, branch, the TSA.

Almost 10 years later, not one similar attack on American soil has occurred.

Not only does the Tea Party Patriots reject racism of any form, in principle and in practice, it also rejects religious bigotry, very much including bigotry against Muslims. Indeed, I would not allow my reputation to be associated with any group that denigrated the reputation of this great Faith or of the name of the Prophet, may Peace be upon him.

For those only familiar with the Tea Party by what the media portrays — permit this clarification. The media has a propensity to sensationalize. While there may be individual members who do not consistently maintain the dignity of the Order, the Tea Party Patriots charter is very clear. Its Mission Statement, Core Values, and Philosophy are publicly and proudly posted http://teapartypatriots.org/Mission.aspx for all the world to see:

Mission Statement

The impetus for the Tea Party movement is excessive government spending and taxation. Our mission is to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize our fellow citizens to secure public policy consistent with our three core values of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets.

Core Values

· Fiscal Responsibility

· Constitutionally Limited Government

· Free Markets

Fiscal Responsibility: Fiscal Responsibility by government honors and respects the freedom of the individual to spend the money that is the fruit of their own labor. A constitutionally limited government, designed to protect the blessings of liberty, must be fiscally responsible or it must subject its citizenry to high levels of taxation that unjustly restrict the liberty our Constitution was designed to protect. Such runaway deficit spending as we now see in Washington D.C. compels us to take action as the increasing national debt is a grave threat to our national sovereignty and the personal and economic liberty of future generations.

Constitutionally Limited Government: We, the members of The Tea Party Patriots, are inspired by our founding documents and regard the Constitution of the United States to be the supreme law of the land. We believe that it is possible to know the original intent of the government our founders set forth, and stand in support of that intent. Like the founders, we support states' rights for those powers not expressly stated in the Constitution. As the government is of the people, by the people and for the people, in all other matters we support the personal liberty of the individual, within the rule of law.

Free Markets: A free market is the economic consequence of personal liberty. The founders believed that personal and economic freedom were indivisible, as do we. Our current government's interference distorts the free market and inhibits the pursuit of individual and economic liberty. Therefore, we support a return to the free market principles on which this nation was founded and oppose government intervention into the operations of private business.

Our Philosophy

Tea Party Patriots, Inc. as an organization believes in the Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government, and Free Markets. Tea Party Patriots, Inc. is a non-partisan grassroots organization of individuals united by our core values derived from the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States of America, the Bill Of Rights as explained in the Federalist Papers. We recognize and support the strength of grassroots organization powered by activism and civic responsibility at a local level. We hold that the United States is a republic conceived by its architects as a nation whose people were granted "unalienable rights" by our Creator. Chiefly among these are the rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The Tea Party Patriots stand with our founders, as heirs to the republic, to claim our rights and duties which preserve their legacy and our own. We hold, as did the founders, that there exists an inherent benefit to our country when private property and prosperity are secured by natural law and the rights of the individual. As an organization we do not take stances on social issues. We urge members to engage fully on the social issues they consider important and aligned with their beliefs.

Revering as we do the Founders — including George Washington, who personally presided over the Constitutional Convention — the words of President Washington bear exceptional weight.

President George Washington famously wrote http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm006.html:

"It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it was the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily, the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support."

As a man whose father's father migrated to America from Rab Island, in the Dalmatian Archipelago, it is a great pleasure to address those of my ancestral Balkan Peninsula with warm and heartfelt greetings from a member in good standing of the Tea Party Patriots: As-Salāmu 'alaykumu.

 

The BC response:

The Balkan Chronicle appreciates that Mr. Benko responded to our request to clarify the position of the American Tea Party movement regarding Muslims and offer his perspective on the issue. We also invite others who have something to say on this issue