Blogger's note: I am actually going to the Gatlinburg-ish area next week, but as I won't be arriving until Monday, I'll be missing out on the Tea Party. Somehow, I think I'll get over that disappointment. Although I would like to take this woman to task for what she has to say. As though people who call themselves Christians who claim the Bible as their authority have never perpetrated outrageous atrocities? And she's actually claimed on her personal blog – no joke – that "Hitler and the Nazis were inspired by Islam." Uh.... what? I'm all for free speech, but this just adds to the growing pile of evidence that a not insignificant proportion of Tea Partiers are racist and/or xenophobic. And maybe just a little bit stupid.

The video at the bottom of this post is the same video posted at the News-Sentinel website.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/may/21/group-wants-speaker-dropped-tenn-tea-party/

TN tea party won't drop speaker for Islam views

ERIK SCHELZIG, Associated Press Writer
Posted May 21, 2010 at 6:40 a.m. , updated May 21, 2010 at 10:28 a.m.

NASHVILLE - Tea party organizers will not drop a speaker from a Tennessee convention this weekend despite calls from a national Muslim rights group that considers her anti-Islamic.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations had urged that Pamela Geller be cut from the Tennessee Tea Party Convention in Gatlinburg over her views on Muslims. Washington-based CAIR said in a release Thursday that it objects to Pamela Geller's presentation titled "The Threat of Islam."

Convention organizer Anthony Shreeve said in an e-mail today that Geller will speak despite those concerns.

"We will not follow any request from CAIR," Shreeve said. "We also believe in the right to freedom of speech as given to us by our U.S. Constitution."

Geller heads a group called Stop Islamization of America.

"CAIR is trying to get good, decent Americans in the Tennessee Tea Party to crush free speech by dropping me," Geller wrote on her blog.

The Gatlinburg meeting has been organized by a coalition of more than 30 tea party groups around the state that chafed at the goals and price tag of a national tea party convention held in Nashville in February.

The registration fee for the Gatlinburg event is $30, while the Nashville event that featured a speech by former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin cost $549.

Grass roots activists have criticized Nashville event organizer Judson Phillips' leadership of the Tea Party Nation for being too closely tied with the Republican Party and for designating the group a for-profit organization.

Phillips' group has scheduled a "National Tea Party Unity Convention" in Las Vegas in July.

The Gatlinburg meeting features a keynote speech from U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, and a debate among Tennessee gubernatorial candidates.

More details as they develop online and in Saturday's News Sentinel.