Officially the Tea Parties concentrate on economic issues and claim to avoid social issues. It could be a good thing to have a fiscally conservative group which is not reactionary on social issues. (For the sake of discussion we’ll ignore for the moment the fact that Tea Party people tend to be far too ignorant on the economic issues to be of any value, such as in believing Obama raised their taxes when he actually lowered them, and in failing to understand that Medicare is a government program.) Even if they officially are not a part of the Tea Party platform, members still have their opinions on social issues which influence which candidates they support–and these views tend to be extreme right wing. Dana Goldstein provides examples in an article at The Daily Beast.