Last night at St. Anselm’s College in New Hampshire the dwindling GOP Presidential nominee candidates met to have their 165,273rd GOP debate hosted by ABC.
And what a sniping lie ridden debacle it was with such vile statements hurled about LGBT equality and the refusal to separate church and state one would have thought it was 1980 and Jerry Fawell and the Moral Majority was in full swing once again.
At one point in the evening Diane Sawyer finally after all these debates read a question from a Virginia man about what sort of relationship recognition outside of marriage the candidates would support.
Romney, Perry and Santorum said they back a federal constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between a man and a woman. WMUR Political Director Josh McElveen pressed Santorum on the fact that the Federal Marriage Amendment would invalidate the marriages of 1,800 same-sex couples who have taken advantage of New Hampshire’s marriage equality law since it took effect in Jan. 2010.
Santorum:
“If the constitution says marriage is between a man and a woman, marriage is between a man and a woman,” he said. “That’s what marriage is – and would be in this country. And those who are not men and women who are married -would not be married. That’s what the Constitution would say.”
But the most surreal moment of the night was when the question was passed to Newt Gingrich expressed his opposition to marriage equality and invoked “the sacrament of marriage.” and did so with a straight face as his third wife, Callista, sat in the audience and applauded and then went into a barage of accusations about the “the left media” and “anti-christian bigotry”
Gingrich:
We want to make it possible to have those things that are most intimately human between friends. It is a huge jump from being understanding and considerate and concerned, which we should be, to saying we therefore are going to institute the sacrament of marriage as though it has no basis. e sacrament of marriage was based on a man and a woman, has been for 3,000 years,”
Gingrich specifically knocked a question about whether the assembled candidates would allow gay couples to adopt.
And there’s a lot more anti-Christian bigotry today than there is concerning the other side. And none of it gets covered by the news media. Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won’t accept gay couples, which is exactly what the state has done? Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won’t give in to secular bigotry? Should the Catholic Church find itself discriminated against by the Obama administration on key delivery of services because of the bias and the bigotry of the administration?”
Romney agreed with Gingrich also bringing up Catholic Charities in Massachusetts which closed its adotion services. But what they didn’t say was that it was a result of the Catholic hierarchy in MA who wanted an exemption from civil rights laws. The board of Catholic Charities voted unanimously to continue performing adoptions and to comply with civil rights laws, but was overruled by the Catholic hierarchy and they forced them to close.
Not to be outdone Rick Perry took the opportunity to reiterate his support for a Federal Marriage Amendment and his belief that the Obama administration is conducting a war against people of faith. Among the policies changes to which Perry took exception was the Obama administration’s decision to no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.
“That is a war against religion, and it’s going to stop under a Perry administration,” the candidate said, receiving applause from the audience.
Jerry Fawell and Ronald Reagan are smiling in Hell.