GAY RIGHTS

Newt Gingrich: Republican Party Should Back Gay Marriage

Embrace the inevitable, he says

Dec 21, 2012 by Mary Noble

Senior Editor t

Image: Politix

In a fascinating reversal, Newt Gingrich says he sees marriage equality as "inevitable," and encourages the Republican party to "accommodate and deal with reality."

"I think that this will be much more difficult than immigration for conservatism to come to grips with," he said. "It is in every family. It is in every community. The momentum is clearly now in the direction in finding some way to...accommodate and deal with reality. And the reality is going to be that in a number of American states - and it will be more after 2014 - gay relationships will be legal, period." Gingrich mentioned his own half-sister, who is gay, and gay friends who are married.

"I didn't think that was inevitable 10 or 15 years ago, when we passed the Defense of Marriage Act," he said. "It didn't seem at the time to be anything like as big a wave of change as we are now seeing."

He stated that he still sees marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. But he argued that his party should accept that "marriage in a church" is different from "a legal document issued by the state" - which could be made available to gay couples.

In the same interview, Gingrich took a moment to argue that he would have done better against Obama than his one-time rival, Mitt Romney.

Via the Huffington Post.

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?	Will Gingrich's embrace of gay marriage be mainstream among Republicans by 2016?

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Yes, it's inevitable

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No, it will take longer

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No, it will never happen

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Dec '12

woodtick57

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Wow. Is Gingy thinking of running again in 4 years?

it is, of course, inevitable.
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Dec '12

AmericanRoots

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I do agree that marriage in a church and sanctioned by God is not the same as a paper license given by the state & therefore doesn't hold the same weight.
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Dec '12

woodtick57

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Yes the church marriage means the same as a few people dancing around a fire with sticks holding their own ceremony...legally that is.
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Post @woodtick57
Dec '12

AmericanRoots

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@woodtick57 : I don't know you. Therefore, I hold no respect for you or your opinions.
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Dec '12

woodtick57

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@AmericanRoots

OK.

The legal weight of a religious ceremony is not an opinion though.
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Dec '12

AceLuby

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@AmericanRoots How rude.
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Post @AceLuby
Dec '12
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Dec '12

justapirate

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Define Republican, please. Are we talking about real folks or the extreme folks. Different answers would apply.
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Dec '12

Capt_Morgan02

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Getting on the side of true freedom is the only way republicans stand a chance. They still have a legitimate small govt argument to make though, that would likely conflict a little with the democratic parties ideas on the subject. Why is govt in the marriage business at all?
- B4 • Vote Up r7 Replies
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Dec '12

AceLuby

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Because there are laws diffentiating blood relatives and everybody else. Things like death benefits, children, hospital visits, etc... all have legal differences when talking about someone who is related to you by blood and someone who is not. 'Marriage' is a legal contract to say that someone who is not related to you becomes first in line over people that you are blood related to. That is why govt is in the marriage business, whether or not two people are married means a lot when talking about the law.
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Dec '12

woodtick57

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Who else would regulate a legal, binding contract? marriage has been the purview of the state since its inception as a social construct.
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Post @woodtick57
Dec '12

NormalFlora

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@AceLuby Excellent way of explaining marriage. I believe marriage is between two adults who so choose to make their union legal and binding. Period.
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Post @NormalFlora
Dec '12

Capt_Morgan02

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@AceLuby we shouldn't be subsidizing certain things for people just because they choose to get married. There should be no state sponsored incentive or disincentive to get married. If someone wants to determine how to split assets in the event of a divorce, they should have a pre-nup. Other than that just let people be.
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Dec '12

woodtick57

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@Capt_Morgan02

And let teh gov't tax the wealtha nd property you helpedd create when your partner dies? A pre-nup won't stop that.
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Dec '12

Neo_NtheMatrix

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Wow.
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Dec '12

PoliticalSpice

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Come on, give us more, when I saw the headline I was dying to see your response.
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Dec '12

Neo_NtheMatrix

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@PoliticalSpice - That's my response: Wow.
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Dec '12

NormalFlora

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We keep telling you that it's the top of the 9th for the GOP and the score is GOP 2, reality 56, and you keep waiting for your starting pitcher to settle down and find his "game." We'll, Newt for one sees the writing on the wall, along with Demint and Crist.
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Post @NormalFlora
Dec '12

PoliticalSpice

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@NormalFlora LOL, great analogy. You come up with it yourself?
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Post @PoliticalSpice
Dec '12

NormalFlora

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@PoliticalSpice Yep
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Post @NormalFlora
Dec '12

DARSB

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As the Fiscal Cliffmas mess clearly shows, "accommodate and deal with reality" is not a quality of the Republican Party at the moment.
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Dec '12

DerivePI

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A distraction from the core of the conservative philosophy. At the Federal level, the Republican party should neither be for or against gay "marriage"
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Dec '12

woodtick57

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So they should be for the repeal of DOMA and the federal benefits given to married couples?
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Post @woodtick57
Dec '12

DerivePI

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@woodtick57 - Yes, I am all for eliminating the Federal "benefits" for married couples - http://www.ehow.com/facts_5756036_taxes-filin...

As for DOMA, I do not want the purpose of the Federal Government tainted by discussions they are not entitled to have. This invasion is due to federal meddling with our tax system. If your state wants to recognize necrophilia, that is up to your state and DC should have nothing to say about it.
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Dec '12

woodtick57

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@DerivePI how about the ability of a married person to take over the wealth that couple created together tax free? And many of the other benefits married couples get?
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Dec '12

DerivePI

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@woodtick57 - How about eliminating the inheritance tax, and eliminating other "benefits."
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Dec '12

woodtick57

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@DerivePI

Damn straight eliminate the death tax.

Without the federal benefit of mariage, your estate would be taxed when it is passed on to your surviving partner.
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Post @woodtick57
Dec '12

Thunderchicken

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"But he argued that his party should accept that "marriage in a church" is different from "a legal document issued by the state" - which could be made available to gay couples."

As could a church marriage if a church were to sanction it. And I'm sure they're are plenty of churches that will.
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Dec '12

WMCOL

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At least Newt recognizes the hypocrisy of so many Republicans being in the closet practicing homosexuality and condemning it in others at the same time. He's calling for some consistency among Republicans. He wants them to preach what they practice.
- B2 • Vote Up r5 Replies
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Dec '12

rkinsawjoe

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Now if Newt could only recognize his own hypocrisy where marriage is concerned. In 1980 Gingrich served his wife of 18 years with divorce papers as she lay in a hospital undergoing chemotherapy treatments because ,according to his own campaign treasurer,"she's not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the president. Besides,she has cancer." While leading the charge against Clinton and his infidelities,Gingrich himself was involved in an affair of his own with a much younger staffer. Yet unlike the Clintons,still known more for the affairs than for working to preserve their marriage, Newt chose to divorce and remarry again. Talk about consistency. Practice what you preach? Gingrich changes religious affiliations as easily as wives. His Lutheran beliefs evolved into Southern Baptist which oddly paralleled his budding political career in Georgia. In '09,"struck by the happiness and peacefulness" exuded by the Pope,he converted to Roman Catholicism. Happily this epiphany cleared the way for his marriage to wife #3,Callista. Serendipity or just more of the same consistency Gingrich has shown throughout his public life?
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Post @rkinsawjoe
Dec '12

PoliticalSpice

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@rkinsawjoe The man is a hypocrite. I men him one day and we talked some. Where did this man who opposes spending on federal projects happen to meet, sitting in an amtrak station, waiting to take a train he opposed funding for. He did have his pretty aid with him, i might add. At the time he was nowhere in the polls, so i refrained from kicking him while he was down...
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Post @PoliticalSpice
Dec '12

WMCOL

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@PoliticalSpice
Yup, he still believes he has the best answers and can do or say anything he wants and still be accepted by the public, no matter how many times he is rejected...just a matter, in his mind, of not yet getting the people to understand he is the best.

"Open Marriage" anyone?
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Post @WMCOL
Dec '12

PoliticalSpice

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@WMCOL maybe if obama built a colony on the moon repubs would support him?
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Post @PoliticalSpice
Dec '12

WMCOL

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@PoliticalSpice
>>>maybe if obama built a colony on the moon repubs would support him?<<<

Only if it had orphanages, and kids could be put to work sweeping their school.
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Dec '12

tomincali

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if they believe it is wrong they should stand up as those who see it right do for the way they see the issue. with all the caving more and more shows there is not right or left funny thing though the so call right is doing all the caving.
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Dec '12

Food4thoughts

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Newt is as slippery as... well...a Newt!
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Dec '12

Keyjo

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Some churches do Marry Gay couples. Religion does not have to promote equality. The state should.
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Dec '12

freaky6smurf

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Im so glad my mother is not here any more 2 see this craziness.
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Dec '12

Keyjo

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As Newt jumps on the band wagon; a day late and a dollar short.
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Dec '12

RoFroh

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This is just stupid!!! What my neighbors idea of marriage does not influence mine... Disagreeing with ones lifestyle doesn't give the right to determine how they live it.
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Dec '12

TheJimmy

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Newt is the epitome of a morally corrupt politician.
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Dec '12

Fitz

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Vote libertarian. Only sure way of getting government out of marriage.
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Dec '12

jnjaist

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There seem to be emerging two definitions of marriage in our culture, at least in the minds of some.“Legal marriage” can be the state-sanctioned union of a man and a woman, a man and a man or a woman and a woman. But hey, why stop there? If the state really can re-define “marriage”, why not marriage of a brother and his sister, or a woman and her dog, or whomever with whatever? But I digress. For purposes of this discussion, the other kind of marriage is “biblical marriage”, which is real marriage as defined by the God of the Bible. Use of the term “marriage” to signify anything other than the union of one man and one woman is an illegitimate use of the term, because God, the author of marriage, has already defined and used that term, and the last time I checked, He hasn’t changed His mind! Our culture may refer to homosexual unions as “marriage”, but God still calls them sin. Merely calling it marriage doesn’t make it marriage, any more than hanging out in a garage makes you a car! Read more at http://rethinkingtheology.com/2012/07/18/gay-...
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Dec '12

woodtick57

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There isn't even a marriage rite in your mythical bible. The christian church didn't get into the marriage game until the 14th century or so and that was just ot have some church lackey bless the state sponsored marriage on teh steps of the church.

The social construct of marriage has been the purview of the state since its inception.
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Post @woodtick57
Dec '12

NormalFlora

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Bigoted Balderdash
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Post @NormalFlora
Dec '12

jnjaist

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@woodtick57 God defined and sanctioned marriage long before there was a state. The advent of rites is irrelevant to these facts because rites are not the essence and nature of marriage; the specified (by God) relationship is.
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Post @jnjaist
Dec '12
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Dec '12

woodtick57

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@jnjaist

Myths do not make up the facts of what marriage is.

Even the earliest hebrew recordings of marriage referr to it as a contract between two fathers...No religious ceremony involved at all.
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Post @woodtick57
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Dec '12

1adam2

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if any thing, will destroy the united state this is definatly in the lead. i refuse to vote, for the way the worded this.
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Dec '12

woodtick57

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yet none of these doom and gloom predictions have come true in any country or state that have had SSM for quite a while now.
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Post @woodtick57
Dec '12

1adam2

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@woodtick57 so you think, the increasing plague of school massacres, and other pestilence, plagues and famine are worth the risk? and that the murder of twenty school children, are an acceptable sacrifice in exchange for this perversion.
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Post @1adam2
Dec '12

Zazziness

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@1adam2 I think all natural disasters and human madness is more likely the result of people wearing clothing woven of two fibers and our failure to stone adulterers to death. You know how it is when you part from the old ways...
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Post @Zazziness
Dec '12

1adam2

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@Zazziness it all adds up, but not all sins are weighted the same. and worshiping other g-ds, is the worst of idoliterous adultries. and homosexuality, is the result of worshiping the worst of the three three really bad angels. and it is extreemly hard, to recover, from the acceptance of halooseefer. when you would be better off being a worshiper of hasatan, or baal hamolech.
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Dec '12

woodtick57

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@1adam2

Wow! That 's really out there...

how come coutries that have had SSM for longer than we have haven't had those things you mention? The facts seem to punch massive holes in your theory.
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Post @woodtick57
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Dec '12

Zazziness

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Are they sure they heard him right? As I understand it, Newt is more a proponent for *open* marriage.
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Dec '12

PoliticalSpice

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Open to more then just women, apparently. And that other thread, woven of two kinds of fibers, and you thought newt, palin and bauchman were sacrey!
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Will Gingrich's embrace of gay marriage be mainstream among Republicans by 2016?

Will Gingrich's embrace of gay marriage be mainstream among Republicans by 2016?