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Manhattan Diary by Cahir O'Doherty

Newt Gingrich's attacks on marriage

Posted on Saturday, March 12, 2011 at 08:10 AM

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Newt Gingrich has a hell of a lot of nerve.

The man who wants to be our next president told the press this week that his many episodes of adultery were in fact driven by his work ethic and his love of the United States of America.

To wit: illicit sex is now your patriotic duty. Unless it's gay sex of course, in which case, presumably, it's treasonous.

But what, one wonders, did he tell all of his conquests? To lie back and think of America?

"There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate," this paragon of righteousness brought low by his own country said this week.

"What I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn't trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them," he said. "I found that I felt compelled to seek God's forgiveness. Not God's understanding, but God's forgiveness."

There'll be neither understanding or forgiveness from this epic hypocrite for his fellow gay Americans, of course. His experiences didn't teach him compassion.

Gingrich, for the record, cheated on his first two wives. He informed the first one he was divorcing her when she was recovering from uterine cancer. His second wife had just been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when he gave her the chop.

This is the man who now says with a straight face that he wants to protect marriage. But haven't his own actions proved a greater threat to marriage than anything his gay neighbors could have dreamed up?

We're at a time when the do as I say not as I do rhetoric of the GOP has reached its nauseating nadir. We're at the moment when hypocrisy boils over and turns into something else: stupidity.

Newt wants to legislate against gay unions. He still wants the United States Constitution to ban them (years after Bush gave up on that quest). He'd do better to take an inventory of his own life.

If marriage is a scared bond between one man and one woman, I have to ask, what does the word "sacred" actually mean to him? Which one of his multiple marriages was the most sacred to him?

How can this man even show his faces in public? God may forgive him, but voters shouldn't.

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beyondthepale | Mar 13, 2011, 08:31 AM EDT

Gingrich is now a tea-hadist and a paranoid conspiracy theorist. It's nauseating when a politician claims God forgives his sins as he dares to hold others to account for theirs. Gingrich is going nowhere.

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casualMBA | Mar 12, 2011, 10:56 PM EST

Cahir, Why is it "Newt Gingrich's Attacks on Marriage" becomes a polemic on the Virtues of Gay Marriage? Despite your sexual preference (which is none of my business) and readership fascinated with your preferred topic, there is at least one reader of IC (i.e., me) who might be interested in the diary of Manhattan, or its arts scene, rather than the latest topic platform to advance Gay Marriage.

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armaghabu | Mar 12, 2011, 10:41 PM EST

As far as I can see President Obama enjoys a strong and longstanding marriage, raising two principled young girls well. That's in stark contrast to the three times married Newt Gingrich - who is brazen enough to attack gays for wanting the same rights he disrespected multiple times.

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Newrone | Mar 12, 2011, 07:12 PM EST

CAHIR... YOU HAVE A HABIT OF PUTTING YOUR FINGER ON THE BUTTON & DRAWING BACK THE CURTAIN TO REVEAL THE TRUTH!

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jdi2269 | Mar 12, 2011, 06:13 PM EST

CAHIR....YOUR ONLY QUALIFICATION TO WRITE FOR THIS PAPER IS YOU ARE A TRULY DUMB LIBERAL THAT CAN'T THINK!

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eiriamach | Mar 12, 2011, 04:56 PM EST

Women will not forget Newt's smear campaign against Elena Kagan, President Obama's recent appointee to the Supreme Court. Americans who believe in an independent judiciary will not forget the $200,000 he raised in a vindictive campaign to unseat three Iowa Supreme Court justices whose rulings on single-sex marriage displeased him. And many are repulsed by his mean-spirited sarcasm, like the comment he tossed at the female journalist who asked how he could consider running for president when his personal life had been so sordid: "I'll bet almost everybody here can gather the thrust of your question. I appreciate the delicacy and generosity in the way it was framed. I hope you feel better about yourself." Gingrich represents not an intelligent, patriotic conservatism but conservatism at its nastiest and most self-serving. Ugh!

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maloney | Mar 12, 2011, 03:38 PM EST

It didn't stop obama from running. He is the King of do as I say not as I do.

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seanomelbourne | Mar 12, 2011, 03:22 PM EST

Gingrich!!"do as i say not as I do"God might forgive you but the family's of your ex wives may not. What a sanctimonious hypocrite he is and his minions writing below condone him by their silence and decide to go on a tirade of abuse of his detractors.Nicomax has the right idea.

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eiriamach | Mar 12, 2011, 02:23 PM EST

rpmchevy, I am such a grievous sinner that, I do assure you, I would never consider running for Pres.

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rpmschevy | Mar 12, 2011, 01:34 PM EST

Hey Cahair have you never done anything wrong? Oh that is right, Gays are perfect right so they, you can cast the stones. Is Newt hypocritical for NOW wanting to protect the sacredness of marriage? Here is the bigger question, if you are a Christian, which I assume you are not, was he a Christian when he was a TERRIBLE husband previously? I do not like that he is a Catholic, but if he has confessed to God, if he has asked for forgiveness, if he has reconciled with his past wives, then you have no right to attack him on that claim. I love how this site wants to support cry babying adulterer, druggie, non-productive Charlie Sheen and yet attack Newt for his earlier errors in judgement. And I also love how you twist his words. He did not say it was American and patriotic to commit adultery, he said that during the time he was away from his spouse and the stess of leading Congress he committed these sins. Dear Cahair, James and eiriamach, I am real sure you all are sinners as well.

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Nicomax | Mar 12, 2011, 12:55 PM EST

It would be best for all of us that he is soon NEWTered.

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JamesMurphy | Mar 12, 2011, 09:36 AM EST

Read Gail Collins' column in The Times. She sums up the creep very nicely. Man, is the right-wing desperate for a candidate. They are even willing to stoop to the slimey one.

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eiriamach | Mar 12, 2011, 09:19 AM EST

How many times has Newt been divorced--fewer than Henry VIII? And, confident of divine forgiveness, he publicly confessed and repented his serial adulteries? And does he not claim to be a faithful Catholic? OK, that's probably enough evidence of "character" for him to have the support of the Catholic bishops in the 2012 presidential campaign. Priests will be instructing the "faithful" to cast votes for Newt in the primaries simply because he opposes gay marriage and opposes abortion.

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