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Gingrich: 'Traditional Marriage' Will Return, Europe Will Go Religious

June 16, 2009 RSS Feed Print

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By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

I'm profiling Newt Gingrich and was struck by two predictions he recently made to me on the religion/politics front: that "traditional marriage" will return in states that have already legalized gay marriage, and that mostly secular Western Europe will soon see a major religious revival.

Here's what Gingrich said:

I happen to favor traditional marriage and suspect in the long run we'll go back to traditional marriage. I don't believe we're going to follow Europe down the road of a secularized, nonreligious society. If anything, I suspect that in the next 30 years Europe will become dramatically more religious because what it will find is that a secular society is stunningly sterile and has no natural base on which to organize civilization.

Both predictions run counter to conventional wisdom, but many Republican allies call Gingrich a futurist because of his prescience on big issues. What do you make of his crystal ball reading?

Read more by Dan Gilgoff.
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Tags:: religion,; Republican Party,; marriage,; Europe,; Newt Gingrich

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"Both predictions run counter to conventional wisdom"
As for the first one about gay marriage, I'm inclined to agree. If gay marriage is ever re-banned it will be so far in the future and will come after such unthinkable socio-economic/political trauma (i.e., most probably a war) that it certainly isn't a short term ambition. But notice that he doesn't state his time frame on that one. As for the other prediction, that is far closer to reality. As someone pursuing a Master's in European and Mideast Studies, the re-religification of Europe is a constant theme. Notice again that when he spoke of Europe being religious again in 30 years, he didn't say which religion. That this so easily slipped by you is really very telling of how insulated and ignorant Americans are. I guess if you write for US News you really take that maxim to heart. Islam is fast growing in Europe. It is already the 2nd largest religion there, and more importantly, only Muslims are having enough children to replace themselves. Europe's demographic decline is so pronounced that it's practically old hat these days. The secular masses are simply not having children (2.1 per woman is the bare minimum needed for replacement; the EU average is 1.7) thereby opening the door to Gingrich's prediction. This is not a controversial piece of information--it's a fact, and by the 90s it finally started to dawn on Euro govts that they had to address it. France, Sweden, Italy, and Russia are countries I know for a fact offer huge tax incentives to couples with 2 or more children. Granted, it's so hard to predict even 30 years ahead--who knows what will happen. But Gingrich is not off his rocker on this one.

Maira of NY 2:50AM February 26, 2010

How many wives has Gingrich had - 3 so far. This is all crap from the party where lies become truth, and truth becomes lies. Who knows - prob the next wife for Gingrich will be a guy. He is just like Rush Limbaugh, 3 wives up and 3 wives down. Maybe he has a B/F who will out him, like happened his christian pals such as Minister Ted Haggard, who ranted against gays, and then satisfied his urges with a - get this - male prostiture. And then Haggard was "christian cured of his homosexuality". Result - he moved from a 30 year old male prostitute to a 18 or 20 year old, or both - the situation is somewhat unclear - male. Oh, BTW, add republicans Foley, Craig, the 2006 head of the young republicans who went into a sleaping man's room and had oral sex until the victim woke up and called the police.
The whole republican party leadership is nothing but a bag of liars. They do just the opposite of what they preach, while blinding religious people to their real goals - turning America into a big Mexico, where tens of millions of the middle class have to leave their nation to find work at dirt cheap wages, to support their families.
These pigs will not go to the slaughterhouse, unfortunately. But they will go to God's re-education camp for their lies and mass thievery All in the Name of God.
As for Europe, religion is dead there. Only about 15% of people attend church regularly. And many of them are widows looking for a new husband. The Catholic church is recognized as the church that gave the world the hatred of the Jews, Jesus own people. A hatred that Hitler - a Catholic - leveraged to gain total control of Germany and give us WWII. Now headed by a man who learned about power and control because he was born in 1928 in Nazi germany.
And without the Church, in many ways a medieval monstrosity whose hate is now focused on gays, virtually every major nation in Western Europe recognizes gay relationships legally. Only exceptions are Greece and Italy, and Ireland will happen this year.
And to add to the list of nations who recognize the humanity of God's creation which includes gay people, we have Canada, Israel, Rep. of South Africa, New Zealand, Australia*, Nexico*, Chech republick, Hungary, Canada, Brazil*, Uraguay, Columbia, Arrgentina*. Nepal, and Japan".
* - partial rights and / or rights only in some states.

SteveMD2 of MD 1:56AM June 29, 2009

Traditional marriage? What unmitigated rubbish. Not a sane person alive would agree to anything like ‘traditional marriage” especially this despicable blowhard hypocrite who
pressed his first wife to sign divorce papers while she was still in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. Disgusting!
Traditional marriage is for better or for worse, till death do us part. Jackie, his first wife. said, "He walked out in the spring of 1980.... By September, I went into the hospital for my third surgery. The two girls came to see me, and said, "Daddy is downstairs. Could he come up?" When he got there, he wanted to discuss the terms of the divorce while I was recovering from my surgery."
The hospital visit wasn't the end of it, either. Jackie had to take Newt to court to get him to contribute for bills, as utilities were about to be cut off. He also graciously said "She isn't young enough or pretty enough to be the President's wife." But his second marriage hasn't been that smooth either. Newt and Marianne have been separated - "frankly", she told the Washington Post in June 1989, "it's been on and off for some time."
So much for family values Traditional marriage. Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy!

Arouete of CA 6:19AM June 19, 2009

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