By now even people on Mars heard last week’s news that current presidential candidate, former speaker of the house, and forever shitty human being Newt Gingrich’s SECOND ex-wife came forward to say that towards the end of their marriage, Newt wanted an open marriage.
Now of course it may not completely surprise people that a man like Newt (who has been married three times and always met the next wife while married) would want an open marriage. Despite his numerous protests to the “false” allegations, the man basically HAD an open marriage, albeit a one-way open marriage. After all, he always left his wife to be with the next one and carried on an affair until he worked up the courage to leave whatever wife (cancer stricken or no) he was with at the time.
I won’t bore you pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of Newt investigating Bill Clinton for adultery when he himself was carrying on an affair. I also won’t draw the parallel that Newt is now a strong contender for the Republican nomination even though he cheated on his cancer-stricken wife and that same thing got John Edwards totally shamed out of the Democratic Party. I won’t even get into how weird it is that evangelical Christians prefer twice-divorced, thrice-married, and totally adulterous Newt over long married (but Mormon) Romney…except that The Bible makes a very big deal out of being divorced and having affairs. It mentions such things many, many more times than it does, say, anything about homosexuality.
And that brings us to my real point. I’d like to ask, “How can a man like Newt be for an open marriage for himself, but no marriage at all to homosexuals that aren’t him?” Surely, the enormous hypocrisy must weigh down on him like so many extra pounds? The irony police waiting at his door to arrest him?
But somehow I feel that he doesn’t even begin to draw the parallel. Either because Republicans like Newt can’t get into the head of somebody who’s different from them (the GOP seems to be the anti-empathy party these days) and therefore don’t get how they could be less moral than gay people, scoff, NEVER. And yet by the actual Christian terms laid out in The Bible (you know, where the whole anti-gay marriage thing pretty much begins and ends) Newt undoubtedly is. To want special moral terms for yourself while denying others their own freedom of choice isn’t just hypocritical, it’s tyrannical. Men in power aren’t entitled to any special privileges that men out of power don’t also get, and if Newt doesn’t get that, then here’s something else he shouldn’t get: to be president.