Tea Party tacitly backs states' rights to gay marriage

I've written about the Tea Partiers' surprising amount of principles before, and it looks like they're at it again, bein' all principled and such:

While many conservative organizations immediately decried a federal judge's decision last week to invalidate the federal ban on recognizing gay marriages, tea party groups have been conspicuously silent on the issue.

The silence is by design, activists with the loosely affiliated movement said, because it is held together by an exclusive focus on fiscal matters and its avoidance of divisive social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Privately, though, many said they back the decision because it emphasizes the legal philosophy of states' rights.

One hopes that if California's Prop 19 passes and there's a California vs. federal government showdown over legalized marijuana, the Tea Party will side with California, or at least not touch the issue.