God, guns, and freedom U.S. Politics |
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The Tea Party Organizers (TPO) was an offshoot of the Tea Party Patriots (TPP) forum, formed in mid-2010 when various members were banned from the main forum for being a little bit too crazy. It was most notable for both its extreme anti-Muslim stance and its ignorance about Islam in general.
The TPO was formed when Ray1547 was banned from the TPP forum for refusing to retract a question about another member's religion in the context of a debate. After the TPP creator decided it was best not to give the allegations of racism ammo and ordered that discussions based on religion be forbidden (a rule clearly designed to shut down several Islam-based topics with questionable content) a number of disgruntled editors moved to the site Ray created, the TPO, where they are openly xenophobic.
The site creator created "The Muslim Terrorist" discussion[1] asking whether all Muslims were to be considered dangerous, and encouraging investigations from which everyone could learn. In a shocking display of ignorance, he also asked whether Buddhists and Hindus were also some type of Muslim; later on they discussed Sikhism.
Even Glenn Beck isn't crazy enough for these people. After he said on his show that there are moderate Muslims, the TPO members were outraged, labeling it a "major gaffe",[4] and going as far as to create this petition against him.
Of course, no Tea Party group is complete without conspiracy theories about Barack Obama; some users there believe he is the Antichrist, while others believe that he is merely a Marxist Muslim.