In an effort to look as if he's just as conservative as Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum to the evangelical voters in Iowa, national poll frontrunner for the GOP nomination Newt Gingrich penned his own "fidelity pledge" and sent it to the conservative Christian organization The Family Leader. According to CNN, the three-times-wed former Speaker of the House said he would "uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity to my spouse and respect for the marital bonds of others."
Gingrich, now a Catholic convert, currently leads in Iowa polling as well, according to Real Clear Politics tracking, but a surging Rep. Ron Paul just might have pushed him into an attempt to win over some of the more fundamentalist church-goers that predominantly make up the voting electorate in Iowa, where the first-in-the-nation caucus is set to be held in just three weeks. But Iowans are probably asking themselves what good a "fidelity pledge" might be from a man who has had extramarital affairs on two former wives? Apparently that "till death do you part" and fidelity bond promised his god didn't matter much on two previous occasions, so why should anyone take his "personal pledge" as gospel this time around?
Gingrich also said in his pledge that he would fully support traditional marriage and the Defense of Marriage Act as a constitutional amendment. The Obama administration has taken the opposing position and the Justice Department has refused to defend the act as unconstitutional.
Family Leader President and CEO Bob Vander Plaats noted that his organization was pleased that the former Georgia congressman had made the pledge. "We are pleased that Speaker Gingrich has affirmed our pledge and are thankful we have on record his statements regarding DOMA, support of a federal marriage amendment, defending the unborn, pledging fidelity to his spouse, defending religious liberty and freedom, supporting sound pro-family economic issues, and defending the right of the people to rule themselves."
Vander Plaats does not say, however, just how "defending the right of the people to rule themselves" reconciles with promoting a constitutional amendment obviating the right of gay persons to even be allowed alternative unions to marriage and be afforded the same familial and legal rights as married partners. Apparently, he -- and Gingrich and others that adhere to "defending religious liberty and freedom" -- do not consider gays people having the right to rule themselves, religiously defensible, or worthy of having laws that safeguard that they be afforded equal treatment.
But Gingrich can say -- or write -- that he will be true to his present wife. Besides, he put it in writing. In his own words (easier to say later that he never signed the organization's "Marriage Vow," just like denying he is not a lobbyist because he never registered). It is a pledge, akin to a contract. Sort of like underwriting a marriage contract -- just like the ones he failed to uphold in the past.
The former Speaker's footing is upon unstable ground in this area, not only because of his past admitted infidelities but also because his Republican opponents are all partners in marriages that have lasted decades. And Gingrich is counting on the time-tested second-chance allowance most Americans believe in to win him additional support in Iowa. Adding in the religious factors of forgiveness and possible redemption, he is gambling that his past will not hurt him in the context of his present decade-old marriage and his positions of traditional marital and familial values.
The "personal fidelity" pledge is also reinforcement to his answer to Texas governor Rick Perry's veiled barb: "... if you cheat on your wife, you'll cheat on your business partner, so I think that issue of fidelity is important."
"I've made mistakes at times," Gingrich replied. "I've had to go to God for forgiveness. I think people have to measure who I am now, and whether I'm a person they can trust."
Newt Gingrich, like the rest of us, is the sum of his past experiences, a set of experiences that has shown that he breaks his word in written contract (marriage license), spoken contract (marriage vows before witnesses), and with a higher spiritual authority (his personal god). Yet he would have evangelical Christians measure their trust in his word against the presumption of having been forgiven by his god in the hope that divine forgiveness trumps their mundane measurements of the present man against his past failings. But his forgiveness by his personal god is an unknown quantity, one that no one can truly corroborate or validate.
The men and women that go to the polls in January to vote in the Iowa caucus do not have to forgive Gingrich, nor do they even have to consider it their place to even do so. They also do not have to believe that he has been forgiven -- by his former wives or by his personal god. And Gingrich has stepped outside his pledges over the years in other areas as well, such as his being sanctioned by the House Ethics Committee for lying to the investigators during his term as Speaker. These are things to be considered before Iowans cast their votes.
So is Gingrich's word good now? Is he a person that can be trusted? Is his "fidelity pledge" worth the paper its written on? Or is he just manipulating the voters the same way he manipulated his wives and mistresses into getting what he wanted?
christine christine redskins oyster festival oyster festival hopkins hopkins
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.