The Republican National Committee will hold its winter meeting in January in Honolulu, Hawaii. The GOP will consider a ‘Purity’ Resolution for candidates.

Republican leaders are circulating a resolution listing 10 positions Republican candidates should support to demonstrate that they “espouse conservative principles and public policies” that are in opposition to “Obama’s socialist agenda.” According to the resolution, any Republican candidate who broke with the party on three or more of these issues – in votes cast, public statements made or answering a questionnaire – would be penalized by being denied party funds or the party endorsement.

The proposed resolution was signed by 10 Republican national committee members. They are asking for the resolution to be debated when Republicans gather for their winter meeting.

The resolution invokes Ronald Reagan, and noted that Mr. Reagan had said the Republican Party should be devoted to conservative principles but also be open to diverse views. President Reagan believed, the resolution notes, “that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent.”

The development is going to put pressure on Michael Steele, the party chairman, as he tries to maintain a balance between those in his party who have been saying the road to victory is to include divergent views, and those who say the party needs to embrace conservative principles that have been at its core.

Here is the resolution’s list:

       (1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

       (2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care;

       (3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

       (4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

       (5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

       (6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

       (7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

       (8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

       (9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

       (10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

What's most amusing is that even Ronald Reagan would fail this "Reagan" purity test. "Number one, Reagan expanded the government to record levels, doubled FICA taxes and sat over a skyrocketing deficit. Reagan supported amnesty for illegal immigrants. Reagan ignored military recommendations and pulled out of Beirut. Reagan sold weapons to Iran. Reagan hosted the first openly gay sleepover at the White House. Reagan signed a gun control law in California and supported the Brady Bill after he and his press secretary were shot.

The purity resolution does not specify whom among the "Puritans" is to conduct this modern-day Inquisition of GOP heretics. Will the party which supports the use of torture subject its own suspected GOP heretics to the ordeals of fire and water?

The GOP: back to the 15th Century. Time to fold up that "big tent."