Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich got more than 15 minutes of friendly air time on On The Record last night. Predictably, it was time spent attacking President Obama and insinuating that he’s more sympathetic to our Muslim enemies than to our Christian allies. But what really grabbed me was Gingrich’s insistence that “we may have to go to a federal amendment” to prevent gay marriage. Color me crazy but I just can’t get behind a serial adulterer like Gingrich trying to impose marriage morality on anyone else.
Van Susteren fed Gingrich opening after opening to attack Obama, though she did challenge him for not pointing out that Republicans share responsibility for the deficit.
Then at 11:22, Van Susteren asked about a recent quote of Gingrich’s saying he’s “OK with states legalizing gay marriage through popular vote” while also supporting a Constitutional ban on gay marriage.
Gingrich explained that he thought a popular vote was better than having a judge decide the matter but that he would vote against gay marriage. “I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman,” he said. Although he acknowledged that it’s a “very difficult issue,” he slipped in, “and I believe that ultimately we may have to go to a federal amendment.”
Van Susteren didn’t press as to why “we may have to” do that. She did note that there are gay couples across the country raising children and in relationships. Are they not entitled to the same rights and responsibilities that heterosexual couples have, she wondered.
Gingrich said, “I think that there are specific legal agreements they can make but I don’t think that’s a marriage. And I think marriage historically is between a man and a woman. And by the way, it’ll be interesting to see this fall if this does come to a referendum, whether or not the referendum passes because consistently across the country, the American people have been voting for marriage being between a man and a woman.
Van Susteren didn’t mention that Gingrich has been more than a passive bystander in the matter. As CBS News reported, “In 2009, Iowa’s Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling overturning a gay marriage ban as unconstitutional. Three of the judges who ruled in that case were voted out of office in the 2010 midterm elections, an effort that Gingrich supported and helped finance through one of his nonprofit organizations.”
Even more significantly, Van Susteren never challenged Gingrich on the hypocrisy of a guy who spent years violating his own marriage vows trying to regulate anyone else’s marriage.
And word to historian Gingrich – marriage has not always been between A man and A woman. The biblical patriarchs had lots of bootay in the form of polygamy and concubinage. Polygamy is still practiced openly by some Muslims and secretly by some Mormons. In medieval times, arranged marriage was really all about acquisition, on the part of the groom, of property and the securing of feudal alliances. Until the 20th century, women had no real legal rights within a marriage. So marriage as a sacred heterosexual thing – not so much! And Newt Gingrich is hardly a paragon of straight marriage.
The Elite Washington GOP Power Machine can’t stand The Newt and his mistress/wife. They are doing everything they can to make sure he doesn’t get the nod. The Newt can fight back, but in the end, he will lose.
NOTE TO THE NEWT
Pack up your bags and go home. You are going to lose anyway.
A fool and his money are soon parted. Give ’till it hurts!
Except in your case, Newton — there, marriage is between a man and a woman . . . then, another woman . . . then, another woman . . . and then, another woman . . .
{Oh, and if you had had your way, your first marriage would have been between a man, a woman, and a few select “friends” . . .}
.
Well, you gotta admit — the man definitely has experience . . .
.
