So the world may not have ended but we did wake up to some pretty upside-down news. In a huge reformative statement, Newt Gingrich, who has been outwardly opposed to same-sex marriage, told the Huffington Post that he has accepted the fact that gay marriage is, and will continue to be, a part of our society.
In perhaps the most sane statement we’ve heard from the former House speaker, he suggested that his fellow Republicans should accept the distinction between a “marriage in a church from a legal document issued by the state”—the latter being acceptable.
“I think that this will be much more difficult than immigration for conservatism to come to grips with,” he said, noting that the debate’s dynamics had changed after state referenda began resulting in the legalization of same-sex marriage. “It is in every family. It is in every community. The momentum is clearly now in the direction in finding some way to… accommodate and deal with reality. And the reality is going to be that in a number of American states—and it will be more after 2014—gay relationships will be legal, period.”
Just this past year while seeking the Republican nomination, he went on record comparing same-sex marriage to pagan behaviors and that they are “a fundamental violation of our civilization.” He also signed an Iowa conservative group’s pledge to support the Defense of Marriage Act and to seek a federal constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage.
But after the election result reality check, he has raised the white flag and admitted that, though he doesn’t personally agree with it, he can’t argue the that public opinion has shifted and that same-sex marriage in inevitable.“I didn’t think that [marriage equality] was inevitable 10 or 15 years ago, when we passed the Defense of Marriage Act,” he said. “It didn’t seem at the time to be anything like as big a wave of change as we are now seeing.”
Photo: newtgingrich2012.com
Brittny Drye is the senior editor at Equally Wed, the nation’s premier online magazine for gay and lesbian weddings and honeymoons. Follow her on Twitter at @BrittnyDrye or drop her a line directly.
