[ansel12]

Tea Party supporters tend to have conservative opinions not just about economic matters, but also about social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In addition, they are much more likely than registered voters as a whole to say that their religion is the most important factor in determining their opinions on these social issues. And they draw disproportionate support from the ranks of white evangelical Protestants.

A Tea Party by any other name would smell as socially conservative. Just ask Ted Cruz, another Ivy League Tea Partyer who recently made a pilgrimage to Liberty University and declared, “These are troubled times, and religious liberty, the very first liberty in the Bill of Rights, the very first protection we have, has never been more in peril than it is right now.” Or Sarah Palin, another Tea Party favorite who wears her social conservatism on her sleeve.

The tea party is made up of the more conservative, which also means the more religious, and more social conservative, only idiots thought that the tea party was made up of libertarians.

[Star Traveler]

Many people on the left still dismiss the tea party as the same old religious right, but the evidence says they are wrong. The tea party has strong libertarian roots and is a functionally libertarian influence on the Republican Party.

http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/libertarian-roots-tea-party