A piece by Michelle Goldberg in Newsweek chronicles some evangelical voters in Iowa trying desperately to contort their values in order to justify supporting Newt Gingrich. She quotes Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council as saying, "Under normal circumstances, Gingrich would have some real problems with the social-conservative community... But these aren’t normal circumstances."Set aside the fact that Wallis repeats a slander here, the story about Gingrich serving divorce papers to a dying wife, which by now most informed people know is apocryphal.
In other words, this guy clearly doesn’t stand for our values but we are ready to jettison those in order to make sure our party wins the 2012 election. Newt Gingrich’s three marriages – serving his first wife divorce papers while she was suffering from cancer, and cheating on his second wife while leading the impeachment battle against Bill Clinton for lying about his sexual sins – would normally be disqualifiers for family values conservatives.
What's really astonishing about this piece is that Jim Wallis, who calls himself a pro-life pacifist who esteems marital fidelity, would, if given the choice between Democrats like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama and almost any Republican, vote for either of those Democrats. Yet Clinton had multiple affairs, was accused of sexual harassment and even sexual assault. He vetoed legislation that would have outlawed partial birth abortion and launched a war in Bosnia.
Barack Obama twice voted in Illinois against legislation that would have protected newborn babies from being intentionally allowed by medical staff to die, has killed numerous terrorists with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and launched a war in Libya.
And now Wallis chides other Christians for failing to put their principles above politics?
What am I missing?
