Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
Truth Wins Out to Slam Newt Gingrich for Hypocrisy on Marriage Equality in Thursday Roll Call Ad
WASHINGTON – Truth Wins Out is placing a provocative full-page ad in the Capitol Hill publication Roll Call on Thursday admonishing Newt Gingrich for his stunning hypocrisy on the issue of marriage equality. The ad’s headline reads, “Newt Gingrich: Talks Like a Preacher, Lives Like a Porn Star.” It takes the anti-gay presidential candidate to task for his adulterous affairs and serial marriages and includes an original cartoon dubbed “The Marriage-Go-Round.”
TWO’s hard-hitting ad comes one day before Newt Gingrich speaks at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington. The ad ends by saying, “On behalf of loving, life-long same sex couples: Newt, you are a spectacular hypocrite. Shame on you!”
“It takes breathtaking chutzpah for Newt Gingrich to deny loving, committed same-sex couples the benefits of marriage that he has enjoyed three times,” said Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen. “The bizarre embrace of Gingrich by CPAC proves that modern conservatism is not ‘pro-family,’ it is simply anti-gay.”
The ad comes in the same week that Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved repeal of marriage equality, was again ruled unconstitutional in a federal appeals court. While polls show that a majority of Americans support marriage equality, GOP presidential candidates, including Gingrich, appeal to their base by promoting intolerance and discrimination:
“With today’s decision on marriage by the Ninth Circuit, and the likely appeal to the Supreme Court, more and more Americans are being exposed to the radical overreach of federal judges and their continued assault on the Judeo-Christian foundations of the United States,” Gingrich said in a statement about the ruling.
“The idea for this ad came on the day of my own marriage,” said TWO’s Besen. “As we were getting dressed to go to city hall, I heard Gingrich on television preening and prattling about the sanctity of marriage. At that moment, I decided that we had to stand up and speak out against such blatant demagoguery and brazen hypocrisy.”
“Newt Gingrich must be blind not to see the glaring dissonance between his belief that he should have whatever kinds of marriages – open or otherwise — that he wants, and his stated conviction that LGBT Americans shouldn’t be allowed to marry at all,” said John Becker, TWO’s Director of Communications. “Loving, committed same-sex couples like my husband and me simply seek to exercise once the same freedom to marry that Mr. Gingrich has so liberally availed himself of.”
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
** TWO thanks our own Bruce Garrett for the amazing cartoon he drew for our ad.
Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign was rocked last week when his second ex-wife, Marianne, revealed to ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross that in 1999, the former Speaker confessed a six-year affair with a staffer and asked her for an open marriage so his relationship with his mistress could continue:
“I said to him, ‘Newt, we’ve been married a long time,’ and he said — ‘but you want me all to yourself. Callista doesn’t care what I do’ … he was asking to have an open marriage and I refused … that I accept the fact that he has somebody else in his life… No. No. That is not a marriage.”
Naturally, since a GOP presidential debate was being held that same evening in Charleston, South Carolina, the moderator, CNN Chief National Correspondent John King, opened the debate with a question for Gingrich about the sensational allegations (which, being a human being with a pulse and functioning brain, Newt should have seen coming a mile away). When King asked Gingrich if he’d “like to take some time to respond to that,” Newt smarmily replied “No, but I will.”
The crowd roared its approval.
Gingrich continued:
“I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office, and I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that.”
Now the crowd was on its feet, cheering and hollering like churchgoers at a revival.
“Every person in here knows personal pain. Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things. To take an ex-wife and make it, two days before the primary, a significant question in a presidential campaign, is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine… and I am frankly astounded that CNN would take trash like that and use it to open a presidential debate.”
When King tried to cut in to explain that a.) it was not his network that broke the story, and b.) the question was a valid one as it had become a topic of conversation for many Americans, the crowd booed and Newt excoriated King with finger-wagging sanctimony:
“John, it was repeated by your network, you chose to start the debate with it. Don’t try to blame somebody else. You and your staff chose to start the debate with it.”
He then emphatically denied his ex-wife’s allegations, adding that his campaign offered to send personal friends to vouch for his innocence but the network wasn’t interested because “they would like to attack any Republican… I am tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans.”
That’s right: pay no attention to the jaw-dropping hypocrisy. This is all a massive anti-GOP conspiracy conjured up by that evil, elite, liberal media.
The sheer arrogance dripping from Gingrich’s response is nearly beyond comprehension. Sure, Newt’s planet-sized ego has beenwelldocumented (even by members of his ownparty), but Thursday’s display propelled the former Speaker to new heights of political narcissism. After all, when he spoke of the “decent” people who heroically choose to campaign for public office in the face of a “destructive” media onslaught, Mr. Gingrich — a thrice-married philanderer who served two wives with divorce papers while they were dealing with major medical problems — surely counted himself among them.
As I watched King’s question and Gingrich’s response, my head began to spin. What happened to the “personal responsibility” so fetishized by American conservatives? Is this self-victimizing, blame-the-media blowhard the same Newt Gingrich whose so-called “Contract with America” included a “Personal Responsibility Act” that denied welfare assistance to mothers under eighteen, blocked additional aid for dependent children if they were born while their mother was on welfare, and ended aid for dependent children entirely after five years? Is this pompous politician who kisses up to women outside his marriage the same one who pays lip service to the Religious Right’s “values” and travels the country speaking and peddling dozens of books about God, virtue, and the importance of family (including, unbelievably, a “God and the Founders”-type speech to a Republican women’s group in Erie, Pennsylvania just two days after his open marriage ultimatum to his wife)? Is this defiant, habitually non-monogamous sexual reprobate the same former House Speaker who demeaned married same-sex couples in lifelong committed relationships as “friends,” pledged to advance a constitutional amendment excluding same-sex couples from marriage, and funneled $200,000 into the successful effort to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices whose ruling allowed LGBT couples the freedom to marry?
Mr. Gingrich clearly fails to grasp the irony in the fact that he, a self-proclaimed “family values” man, was schtupping a staffer at the same time he was pharisaically pontificating against President Clinton for sexual immorality and leading the charge to impeach him for his extramarital activities. Newt’s ego is so monumental that once he could no longer conceal the affair, he had the temerity to demand in all seriousness that his wife “share” him with his mistress. And his self-righteousness is so epically proportioned that it blinds him to the dissonance between his apparent belief that he should have whatever kind of marriages, open or otherwise, that he wants and his stated conviction that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Americans should be forbidden from marrying at all.
Perhaps the only thing more disconcerting than last evening’s histrionic display? The fact that when Newt Gingrich abdicated his personal responsibility and blamed everyone else — ABC News, the media at large, his ex-wife — for his serial adultery and the troubling flaws in his character, the audience in South Carolina leaped to its feet and cheered.
Brian Ross, ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent (and the journalist who broke the story of Truth Wins Out’s undercover hidden-camera investigation of the Bachmann clinic on national television), scored an interview with Marianne Gingrich, Newtie’s ex-wife number two. It’s scheduled to air tonight, but juicy tidbits are already leaking out, including this bombshell:
The reporter who conducted that interview, ABC Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross, told WMAL’s Morning Majority program that Marianne Gingrich claims her ex-husband wanted an ‘open marriage.’ “He came to her and said, ‘I want to stay married to you and still have an affair with Callista, his current wife,” said Ross. “According to Marianne, he said ‘You need to share me,’ and she said ‘I don’t want to share,’ and the marriage ended,” he added.
That’s right — not only was Newt schtupping a staffer while sanctimoniously railing (and leading the impeachment charges) against President Bill Clinton for similar conduct, but once he could no longer conceal the affair, the Speaker had the temerity to demand that his wife “share” him with his mistress.
Unbelievable. And this is the man who’s trying to tell me I can’t have even one marriage? That HIS marriage has “sanctity” but MINE does not?!?
(Note: Ross misspoke in the quote above. At the time Marianne Gingrich alleges the conversation took place, she (Marianne), not Callista Bisek, was Newt Gingrich’s current wife.)
This time, it’s in Indiana. Meet state representative Phillip Hinkle, who voted with his anti-gay compatriots to ban marriage equality in that state. Here’s what he does in his spare time:
Indiana state Rep. Phillip Hinkle (R) is embroiled in controversy after The Indianapolis Star discovered emails appearing to solicit the paid company of a young man, sent from Hinkle’s publicly listed email address.
In response to a M4M forum Craigslist post, Hinkle emailed the man, named Kameryn Gibson, and offered him $80 cash, with a tip of $50 or $60 “for a really good time” in the hours he proposed spending together at a local Marriott.
Gibson, whose ad lists him as 20 years old but is actually 18, said he met Hinkle at the hotel, and tried to leave when Hinkle said he was a state politician.
He said the lawmaker at first told him he could not leave, grabbed him in the rear, exposed himself to the young man and then later gave him an iPad, BlackBerry cellphone and $100 cash to keep quiet.
That same link goes to the Indianapolis Star, where they have reprinted the e-mails between Hinkle and Gibson. Here’s Hinkle’s original response to Gibson’s ad:
“Cannot be a long time sugar daddy,” the email reads, “but can for tonight. Would you be interested in keeping me company for a while tonight?”
The email offers “to make it worth (your) while” in cash, and offers a personal description: “I am an in shape married professional, 5’8″, fit 170 lbs, and love getting and staying naked.”
Fifteen minutes later, Kameryn Gibson replied: “Yes I can!” He also sent along his phone number.
What followed was an email exchange between phinkle46 @comcast.net and Kameryn Gibson. One email from Hinkle’s account asks “what will make you happy for giving me a couple hours of your time tonight?”
Gibson: “Wat (sic) can you give me?”
Phinkle46 @comcast.net: “How about $80 for services rendered and if real satisfied a healthy tip? That make it worth while?”
And on and on and on. So, let’s see…anti-gay male politician solicits young man for sex over internet, gets caught…
We’ll just file this under “typical stories involving anti-gay Republicans.”
There’s going to be a lot of talk in the coming days about the new conservative victimhood meme — oh you haven’t heard it? Conservatives are the new bullying victims! You see, conservatives are now having to fight for their rights to employment and housing, and they face a hard road coming out as conservatives: some kids are bullied so much for being conservative that they end up taking their own lives; others are rejected by their families and kicked out to live on the streets. Moreover, hate crimes against conservatives are now the most common kind of hate crime, which is bit confusing for them, as they oppose hate crimes legislation.
Of course, all of the above is laughable. No gay person, activist or not, has ever tried to take any fundamental right away from any conservative Christian person. There is a debate to be had, surely, over whether fundamentalists actually understand where their rights end and where the rest of the nation’s citizens’ begin, but I don’t want to have it right now.
Instead, I want to spotlight the story of Iowa teen Ben Alley, who just graduated high school with a 3.25 GPA and is on his way to the University of Iowa. You see, Ben had the misfortune of being born to a Southern Baptist and his wife, who kicked him out onto the street when they found out he was gay:
Ben Alley misses his parents. He’s 18 and just graduated from East Marshall High School in Le Grand, with scholarships to almost cover his costs at the University of Iowa. It’s a time for open houses and pride. But he won’t be getting that from his once-close family — the Southern Baptist minister father and the mother who home-schooled him early on.
They’re not dead; he’s dead to them. In sophomore year, Ben informed his parents that he is gay. They informed him he wouldn’t be coming home after school the next day — or ever again.
[...]
Ben’s is actually two stories in one. The first is about a kid rejected, homeless and compelled to live independently at 16, requiring him to take a late shift job at Walmart to help cover costs. That meant most nights he didn’t start homework until 10:30. It’s about a young man raised in a home where being gay was considered “right up there with being a child molester.” At age 10 he was told by his mom that he didn’t deserve to live anymore, after she caught him experimenting with a boy the same age. Later, when he fought depression, counselors told Ben, “You’ve been taught to hate everything you are.”
Yeah. But please, let’s have this conversation about fundamentalist Christians as bullying victims. It should be entertaining.
None of you love your country enough to deliver divorce papers to your cancer-ridden wife in the hospital, so that you can marry the new lady and then leave her when she gets sick, for the current lady:
Newt Gingrich: 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. And 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.
That’s the kind of American dream story that probably brings a tear to a Boehner’s eye.
But this is the thing:
I found that I felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness. Not God’s understanding, but God’s forgiveness. I do believe in a forgiving God. And I think most people, deep down in their hearts hope there’s a forgiving God.
Thank goodness conservative Christianity has so ingrained the Redemption Story into our collective American myth that patriotic politicians like Newt Gingrich can so easily call upon it to explain away LEAVING TWO SICK WIVES FOR NEW WOMEN. He’s washed his hands of it, given it to God, and if you can’t forgive him too, well then you’re just not a Christian Family Values American.
The Rude Pundit also points out that, in the very same interview, Newtie shared his feelings on the way that Judeo-Christian society [like the kind so ably represented by Newt Gingrich] is being viciously attacked:
“In a sense, our Judeo-Christian civilization is under attack from two fronts. On one front, you have a secular, atheist, elitism. And on the other front, you have radical Islamists. And both groups would like to eliminate our civilization if they could. For different reasons, but with equal passion.”
And you know how you can tell secular, atheist, elitist Muslims want to eliminate American civilization? By the way they don’t abandon their cancer-ridden wives, for the sake of the single-teared bald eagle.
Here’s a school in Texas where you can get all your kids’ Christian education needs met for free if you, like, have sex with the guy who runs with the school.
Apparently rumors have been going around, so one of the few journalists we have left, Mike Stark, decided to ask Boehner about it directly:
It was Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) who told abstinence education advocate Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) that he had to resign from Congress after having an affair with a staffer. It was also Boehner that told members of his caucus that they had to stop using the “party house” to entertain young Republican female lobbyists.
[...]
I began hearing this from several sources last month with increasing amounts of detail, including the name of the lobbyists Boehner is supposedly having a relationship with – Lisbeth Lyons, Vice President for Government Affairs for the American Printers Association.
I decided I’d look into the story, but I hadn’t decided how to pose the question directly to Boehner. Last night, I learned the location of the House Republican Leadership’s “Pledge to America,” event.
I was able to catch up with Boehner just as he was leaving the event. His silence (which does not equal an admission, of course) in the face of the repeated question does not, it seem to me, to be one you’d expect from a happily married man confronted with an accusation of being unfaithful. Note the complete lack of outrage at being asked about allegations that are unfounded or untrue. There wasn’t even a simple “no,” to put the issue to rest.
Boehner’s reaction was indeed strange.
Since Boehner didn’t answer the question, and instead reacted so strangely — as Mike points out, as a married man, the answer to an accusation like that, if unfounded, would be pretty simple: “No.” — Mike Stark decided to ask the woman in question, Lisbeth Lyons. Here’s her equally strange reaction:
“No comment” on whether or not she’s sleeping with John Boehner?
I agree with Mike Stark: This is weird.
For the record, count me as a liberal who personally does not care what politicians are doing with their spare time — except when they use their positions of power to moralize against and vote against gay people. If they’re doing that to appease the heartland wingnuts, and then they’re cheating on their wives in their spare time, it becomes interesting. So let’s review a bit of the Boehner’s record:
Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation. (Nov 2007)
Voted YES on Constitutionally defining marriage as one-man-one-woman. (Jul 2006)
Voted YES on Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage. (Sep 2004)
Voted YES on banning gay adoptions in DC. (Jul 1999)
Rated 7% by the ACLU, indicating an anti-civil rights voting record. (Dec 2002)
Rated 0% by the HRC, indicating an anti-gay-rights stance. (Dec 2006)
I have a feeling this story is going to get bigger, and I’m so glad that there are a few left, like Mike Stark, who will actually commit acts of journalism inside the Beltway.
There wouldn’t really have been a story here if either of them had denied it. At least then, they would be on record when confronted with the accusations. But that is not the case right now, is it?
Known insane teabagger lady Sharron Angle, who thinks she should take Harry Reid’s seat in the Senate, was asked about abortion, and this is what happened:
Stock: What do you say then to a young girl, I am going to place it as he said it, when a young girl is raped by her father, let’s say, and she is pregnant. How do you explain this to her in terms of wanting her to go through the process of having the baby?
Angle: I think that two wrongs don’t make a right. And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade. Well one girl in particular moved in with the adoptive parents of her child, and they both were adopted. Both of them grew up, one graduated from high school, the other had parents that loved her and she also graduated from high school. And I’ll tell you the little girl who was born from that very poor situation came to me when she was 13 and said ‘I know what you did thank you for saving my life.’ So it is meaningful to me to err on the side of life.
What a sick, twisted woman. If life hands your child rape, make child rape brownies! (Don’t get any ideas, Roman Catholic Church.) Or as Alex Balk said at The Awl, “When Life Gives You Incestuous Sexual Assault, Make Incestuous Sexual Assaultade.
I do hope somebody in Harry Reid’s campaign is paying attention and making campaign buttons and commercials right now. Harry Reid: He’ll never make your daughter eat a rape brownie.
Brian Ross, ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent (and the journalist who broke the story of Truth Wins Out’s 
