It’s widely known that Newt Gingrich’s history of it being All About Him and his ambitions goes back a long way, but this news is still really gross. A story from years ago is making the rounds right now, about his marriage to Jackie, his first wife, and it’s fairly disgusting:

She had free will. Nobody forced her to marry someone eight years younger. The man is supposed to marry someone younger, and Newt corrected that the second time around after divorcing Jacqueline in 1980 for “irreconcilable differences,” which he said had been the case through the 1970s, despite counseling.

But did he have to be so mean about it? As reported by L.H. Carter, his campaign treasurer, Newt said of Jacqueline: “She’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer.”

Newt has been claiming for years that it was Jackie that wanted the divorce, but it’s looking like that’s a lie:

[N]ewly revealed 30-year-old court papers posted on CNN’s website appear to contradict that.

In the papers, Battley asks the judge to reject her husband’s request for a divorce.

“Defendant shows that she has adequate and ample grounds for divorce, but that she does not desire one at this time,” her petition said.

“Defendant does not admit that this marriage is irretrievably broken.”

CNN said it was initially told the divorce documents were sealed, but then a reporter found the folder stashed in a court clerk’s drawer in Carroll County, Ga.

[...]

CNN interviewed Newt Gingrich’s former pal and early congressional campaign treasurer Leonard Carter, who said their friendship ended over the ambitious pol’s callous treatment of his wife.

[...]

He said Gingrich initially refused to pay alimony — a claim supported by the court papers — and a church had to launch a food drive for Battley and her two daughters.

Nice. The article points out, of course, that at that time, he was already dating the newer, hotter model, who became his second wife. When she got a wrinkle before Newt’s ambitions came to fruition, he started testing out the 3.0 version, named Callista, with whom he was having an affair while he was attacking President Clinton for infidelity.

Newt Gingrich will never be president — this, we know — but if his pattern holds, I wouldn’t be surprised if Callista gets the boot sometime after the 2012 elections.

OH, funny! Amy Koch is the erstwhile Senate Majority leader in Minnesota who resigned after admitting an “inappropriate relationship” with a staffer, all while being traditionally married. She is also an anti-gay politician, having been a leader of the effort to write marriage discrimination into Minnesota’s constitution. Realizing that gay and lesbians, and our marriages, are the cause of most traditional marriage problems, some of the gays in Minnesota have decided to apologize to Koch for ruining her marriage. Here is their letter:

An Open Apology to Amy Koch on Behalf of All Gay and Lesbian Minnesotans

Dear Ms. Koch,

On behalf of all gays and lesbians living in Minnesota, I would like to wholeheartedly apologize for our community’s successful efforts to threaten your traditional marriage. We are ashamed of ourselves for causing you to have what the media refers to as an “illicit affair” with your staffer, and we also extend our deepest apologies to him and to his wife. These recent events have made it quite clear that our gay and lesbian tactics have gone too far, affecting even the most respectful of our society.

We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry. And we are doubly remorseful in knowing that many will see this as a form of sexual harassment of a subordinate.

It is now clear to us that if we were not so self-focused and myopic, we would have been able to see that the time you wasted diligently writing legislation that would forever seal the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman, could have been more usefully spent reshaping the legal definition of “adultery.”

Forgive us. As you know, we are not church-going people, so we are unable to fully appreciate that “gay marriage” is incompatible with Christian values, despite the fact that those values carry a biblical tradition of adultery such as yours. We applaud you for keeping that tradition going.

And finally, shame on us for thinking that marriage is a private affair, and that our marriage would have little impact on anyone’s family. We now see that marriage is more than that. It is an agreement with society. We should listen to the Minnesota Family Council when it tells us that marriage is about being public, which explains why marriages are public ceremonies. Never did we realize that it is exactly because of this societal agreement that the entire world is looking at you in shame and disappointment instead of minding its own business.

From the bottom of our hearts, we ask that you please accept our apology.

Thank you.
John Medeiros
Minneapolis MN

We at Truth Wins Out are also super sorry.

Not much to say about this, except that it’s happening. Long, you’ll remember, is the Atlanta megachurch pastor who got in hot water last year for allegedly coercing several young men into having sex with him. Anyway, sanctity of marriage, etc. Also, one time he said his job as a preacher was to bring his congregation “fresh sperm.” You’ll have to click the link to see the context.

My only question is this:  How many of these changes is the Religious Right actually happy with?

I mean, we know Phyllis Schlafly probably doesn’t support the 1993 change, because she doesn’t believe marital rape exists.  The 1769 change probably is a bit of a thorn in many anti-gay bigots’ sides.  1967?  Hell, Mississippi’s still having trouble with that.

Perhaps the greater lesson to be learned here is that it’s important to see the same-sex marriage fight not as simply anti-gay, but as just one more thing that chips away at the frail patriarchy wingnuts need to preserve in order to sustain some semblance of self worth.

[h/t Unicorn Booty]

This is a nice way to wake up on Friday morning.  Via Andy Towle, we learn that Tim Ravndal is the president of Montana’s Big Sky Tea Party Association.  This happened on his Facebook page:

In case you can’t read the text, the original post is a whiny, victimized statement about Tradishnul Murge, which says:

“Marriage is between a man and woman period! By giving rights to those otherwise would be a violation of the Constitution and my rights.”

The poor grammar of the teabagging leader is completely unexpected, of course, as Tea Partiers are usually such wordsmiths. Note the malcontent mindset wherein if another person has equal rights, the teabagger’s rights are being violated. Far too few people understand that the political “philosophy” (to use the term very loosely) of the Tea Party movement is basically I’m White And I’ve Got Mine.

Moving along. Tim Ravndal’s friend “Dennis Scranton” then leaves a comment which says:

“I think fruits are decorative. Hang up where they can be seen and appreciated. Call Wyoming for display instructions.”

Haha! Because Matthew Shepard was murdered in Wyoming and hung on a fence to die! Haha! Teabaggers are totally normal people!

Then (haha!) Tim Ravndal replies back, in an equally awkward version of the English language as his original posting:

“Where can I get that Wyoming printed instruction manual?”

Haha! Maybe Wyoming has a how-to guide for killing faggots! Haha!

A note on language:

Dear Teabaggers,

English is the language of the United States of America. Either learn it and assimilate or leave.

That is all.  Oh, and “Ravndal” sounds kind of foreign, so maybe somebody should check his papers.  He certainly doesn’t act like an American citizen.

Newer and older readers might sometimes wonder why the writers at Truth Wins Out occasionally veer, seemingly, way off the beaten path of gay rights and the lies of the Religious Right.  Why do we write about the Park 51 project, Dr. Laura, racism, anti-immigrant hatred, women’s rights and so on?

I’ve always said, for one thing, that discrimination is discrimination, plain and simple, and that moreover, the people who would discriminate against LGBT people tend to be the exact same people who hate Mexican immigrants the most, who use the most coded language to express their distaste for all but their very favorite (read:  Republican) blacks, etc.  There’s an overlap because we’re not dealing with rational people with rational opinions to add to the debate.  Fevered hatred of Mexican immigrants isn’t a well-thought out position; it’s a gut reaction based on fear.  And so it is with anti-gay bias.  These days, there is simply too much education, too much information out there, for people to arrive at a distaste for gay people via any intellectual method.

Along those lines, I was impressed with this post from Betty Cracker over at Rumproast (as I usually am with her posts), which goes a long way to explain, politically, what kind of time we’re living in:

The attempt to establish a Muslimfrei zone around Ground Zero isn’t about 9/11. The wingnut solicitude for “Dr.” Laura’s supposedly lost First Amendment rights isn’t about “Dr.” Laura’s right to repeat racial slurs on the radio.

Fox News’ relentless pimping of the New Black Panther Party non-story isn’t about voter intimidation. Arizona’s anti-immigration law isn’t about illegal immigration. Breitbart’s Shirley Sherrod smear wasn’t about “reverse racism.”

The persistent suggestions from multiple quarters on the right that President Obama isn’t a Christian or an American aren’t about his religion or nationality. And the Prop 8 campaign wasn’t about protecting straight marriage.

What this is all really about is the most orchestrated, widespread attempt to divide this country since George Wallace’s presidential run. Scratch that—Wallace was never more than a regional candidate. This may be unprecedented in living memory.

She then links to a piece from Will Bunch which takes that theme even further, and which deserves to be read in its entirety:

American political debate — in a time of crushing 9.5-percent unemployment, record foreclosures and bankruptcies, and climate change linked to catastrophes from Moscow to Pakistan to Iowa — has been hijacked over the arcane question of whether to allow an Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan. The controversy is stunning — but it should not be. The national brouhaha over the $100 million Muslim Park51/Cordoba House proposal is not an anomaly but rather the culmimation of an alarming downturn in America’s mood, its discourse, and even our former ambitions as a beacon of religious and political tolerance. In 2010, a large swath of the American public — led by ratings-mad media mavens and immoral politicians like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin — had declared out all-out war on “the Other” in America in all its alleged forms, from immigrants to Muslims to non-white aides working in the West Wing of the White House and of course the president himself.

And it is threatening to rip America apart in a way that we have not seen in 145 years.

[...]

America, we are in for the bumpy political ride of a lifetime. It will take enormous courage for defenders of two centuries of religious freedom and tolerance toward both religious and economic refugees to stand firm in the face of the kind of raw public anger and emotion that have caused backbone-impaired politicians like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid or supposed progressive stalwart Howard Dean to wither in mere days. Our determined minority may be barely clinging to our cherished traditions — as best expressed by President George Washington in 1790 when he wrote “the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens” — in the face of this onslaught for the next few years.

Let’s face it: This country has long had its Know-Nothings and its Birchers and its McCarthyites, but it never had gizmos like Fox News or Sarah Palin’s Twitter feed to fuel toxic ideas so far so fast. It’s time we admit these seemingly disconnected battles over “anchor babies, mosques, and a black man in the Oval Office are all part of the same war against “the Other,” and that we are in the fight of a lifetime.

And that, in a few concise paragraphs from two Very Smart People who you all should be reading anyway, is why we at Truth Wins Out are talking about these things.  The people who fight against gay people are rebelling against The Other everywhere they see it these days.  When Maggie Gallagher and her friends talk about “traditional marriage,” there is a whole lot of baggage besides “one man/one woman” tied up in there.  While I’m not saying that every one of them is actively racist or xenophobic (some are), the “I want my country back!” nonsense of their fight for “traditional marriage” is a desire to return to a time when men were the breadwinners and had veto power over everything, the women were legally powerless, raising children was expected rather than voluntary, and all the neighbors were white and spoke American English.  They want to return to a time when everyone “knew their place,” and for white Christian men, that means that everyone else knows that they are the Supreme Penis Gods of whatever homesteads/neighborhoods/Wal-Mart Supercenters they happen to inhabit, and that everyone else maintains their appropriate places, behind whichever Penis God they’ve been assigned to.

It sounds funny, but think about it.

This, by the way, is why the Religious Right is having a fully formed cow about the painfully obvious points Judge Walker raised in his Prop 8 opinion on the subject of gender.  He said, in so many words, that because gender is no longer an essential component in determining the status of partners in  marriage, it’s supremely irrational to deny marriage rights based on gender.  To anyone with half a brain and a spine, this should be obvious.  Married men and women are, whether or not they like it, and whether or not they live it out, equal partners under the law, and have been for a while now.  Christian Rightists do not like that, though!  The existence of gay and lesbian couples who are married doesn’t change anything for them, except to force them to acknowledge that their time of lording their beliefs over society legally is over and done with.

We’re better for it, too, just like the fact that our nation will be majority-minority by 2050 will make us a better, stronger, smarter nation, closer to achieving the ideal of the American Dream.  But our detractors don’t see it that way, do they?

So, again, that is why we talk about all that stuff.  Hope that clears things up.

[h/t to The Poor Man Institute, too, also]

Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian‚Ñ¢, gave an exclusive interview to Instinct magazine, and it’s a must-read. One thing I noticed, though, is that her satire is so spot on that, except for an exaggeration here and there, it’s hard to tell Betty’s silliness and Linda Harvey’s virulence apart. (Again, except for Betty’s obsession with high fashion. And the fact that she’s more honest than they are.) For instance:

Nevertheless, such attention provides a lovely opportunity to introduce homosexuals to my BASH [Baptists Are Saving Homosexuals] ministry. I want gay men everywhere to know that Jesus touched me. And He can touch you, too. … BASH has raised millions in tithes for my tax-free Christian ministries, helped politically marginalize homosexuals and almost cured close to two men from their addiction to penis. As all Conservative Christians who just happen to hate homosexuals anyway know, being “gay” is just a silly choice, a choice most often made by anti-gay Republicans between the hours of 10 PM and Midnight.

Brilliant.

But how is that really different from Linda Harvey’s career, or Peter LaBarbera’s career? Besides the fact that Betty Bowers is more honest about the actual results of the “ex-gay” ministries that Peter and Linda market, I mean.

Just like Peter LaBarbera and Linda Harvey, Betty bristles at being compared to Fred Phelps:

Other? You’re comparing me to Fred Phelps? Darling, that’ a bit like asking Tom Ford what he thinks about fellow designer Jessica Simpson. Honestly, I find Westboro Baptist appalling in their crude eagerness to reveal what they’re really up to. … We may hate all the same people, but we have learned to couch our loathing in more focus-group-friendly phrases than those ham-fisted prairie yokels at Westboro, with their blunt invective, polygamist-compound couture and patent unfamiliarity with hair conditioner. We talk in code. We don’t “hate fags;” we “pray for sinful homosexuals.” Frankly, these unsophisticated loudmouths are showing our hand. And politics, even more than a bathroom mirror, is no place for candor. I say: Love the sinner — hate their shoes!

God, it’s the interview Linda Harvey would give if she was hooked to a polygraph! (Except for the part about shoes.)

Seriously, read it all.

Instinct also posted Betty’s wonderful Bible lesson on “traditional marriage,” so if you haven’t seen that, watch and take notes, for there will be a quiz.

Never did it occur to me that this would have to be pointed out, but I was arguing with someone about equal marriage rights on another blog, and an anti-gay commenter suggested that, were marriage equality to be the law of the land, the laws would have to be “rewritten” and that his/her marriage would now be simply a “civil marriage,” instead of a “marriage.”

Once I picked my jaw up off the ground, a question dawned on me: Do these people, these “traditional marriage” advocates, somehow think that the government is recognizing their religious marriage? Do they think that the government is granting over a thousand rights and responsibilities because of the ceremony they had in a church?

If so, civics education in the United States is far more of a failure than I previously thought.

A primer, for anyone who is unclear on what should be painfully obvious: As current federal law stands, any consenting man and woman may marry (even if they’re first cousins in some states!), and the government recognizes that based on the signed marriage license. If they choose to have a religious ceremony, it’s not the ceremony that makes the marriage official, it’s the signature on the license, and last time I checked, people’s various conceptions of God aren’t given the power to act as agents of the state! In five states, and soon in the District of Columbia, same-sex couples are included in this system, though not recognized at the federal level.

I truly hope that this is not a revelation and that the majority of anti-gay people understand this, but I suppose it’s always good to make sure. You really never know what set of “facts” or what mangled conception of reality people are working with.