religiondispatches.org

Newt Gingrich seems to be getting his conservative Christian credentials all locked up. First, as Sarah Morice-Brubaker has pointed out, he signed the Personhood USA Pledge even though it is at odds with his own “pro-life” beliefs. Now, the twice-divorced and thrice-married former Congressman has signed the National Organization for Marriage’s pledge to defend “traditional” marriage and defend “religious liberty,” which is code for defending the religious right’s ability to bully gay and lesbian people at will using God as their shield.

But, wait, there’s more. Gingrich has hit the conservative Christian trifecta by sitting down with the Des Moines Register’s editorial board to affirm that opposition to marriage equality stating that there is a “big difference between saying that you’re to have an acceptance of people’s lifestyles and saying that you’re now going to normalize that as a standard for the whole country.”

Gingrich also told the editorial board that gay and lesbian people can choose to be straight just like people can “choose to be celibate.”