Newt Gingrich on Civil Rights Former Republican Representative (GA-6) and Speaker of the House

Loyalty test for everyone, not just for Muslims

GINGRICH: Actually, I didn't describe it as applied to Muslims. I described it as applied to everybody. There is nothing illegitimate about seeking to make sure that people are loyal to the US if they work for the government of the US. I was responding to this insane moment [in a trial of] the guy who built the car bomb from Pakistan, was asked by the judge, who said to him, "But you swore an oath of loyalty to the US." And he said to the judge, "I am your enemy. I lied." The judge seemed mystified at the idea that somebody would have lied. And my point is, we now know there really were communist spies. And I would suggest to you we need security provisions across the board to ensure that those Americans and the American government are loyal to the US.

I helped author DOMA; if it fails, amend Constitution

GINGRICH: I helped author the Defense of Marriage Act which the Obama administration should be protecting in court. I think if that fails, you have no choice except a constitutional amendment.

SANTORUM: Constitutional amendment.

PAWLENTY: Constitutional amendment.

CAIN: State decision.

ROMNEY: Constitutional.

Army & Marines wanted Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell

CAIN: If I had my druthers, I never would have overturned "don't ask/don't tell" in the first place. Now that they have changed it, I wouldn't create a distraction trying to turn it over as president.

GINGRICH: Well, I think it's very powerful that both the Army and the Marines overwhelmingly opposed changing it, that their recommendation was against changing it. And if as president--I've met with them and they said, you know, it isn't working, it is dangerous, it's disrupting unit morale, and we should go back, I would listen to the commanders whose lives are at risk about the young men and women that they are, in fact, trying to protect.

BACHMANN: I would keep the "don't ask/don't tell" policy.

Stop forcing same-sex marriage on religious organizations

The campaign against religious symbols is only the tip of the iceberg. Consider the following:
• In Nov. 2006, a student at Missouri State University studying to be a social worker was interrogated by school faculty and subsequently threatened with expulsion when, after being required to lobby state legislators in favor of same-sex adoptions, she asked for an alternative assignment that did not violate her Christian beliefs.
• In Oct. 2009, Congress passed a "hate speech" law subjecting pastors and other faith leaders to prosecution for preaching aspects of their faith that the state decides are "hate speech."
• A Methodist camp meeting association in New Jersey now faces civil rights charges after refusing now faces civil rights charges after refusing a request to host a same-sex couple's "civil union ceremony" in its worship space.
• A young Christian photographer was fined nearly $7,000 in attorney's fees after she refused to photograph the "commitment ceremony" of a same-sex couple.

Helped oust Iowa justices who approved same-sex marriage

Last year, Gingrich helped secure seed money for a successful campaign to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices who approved same-sex marriage in the state.

Gingrich is now hoping his network of conservative Christian leaders will help him win over evangelical voters in Iowa and South Carolina.

Repeal hate speech legislation including campus speech codes

• Repeal so-called "hate speech" legislation. Allowing the courts to broadly determine what they consider "hate speech" is profoundly dangerous to a free people. Congress has no constitutional authority to regulate thought. Speech is already protected, and criminal activities are already legally defined, as are their punishments. Religious leaders who speak either from the pulpits are particularly vulnerable.
• Bar public universities that enforce campus speech codes from using taxpayer funding. The forerunner to recently passed "hate speech" legislation can be found in many of today's publicly funded universities. College campuses historically have been the incubator of ideas and the strongholds of free expression. Today, those same schools have instituted intolerant rules and reporting systems designed to silence speech deemed politically incorrect.

ACLU lawsuits designed to drain resources of Boy Scouts

Five justices banned school prayer against American majority

They are not only arbitrarily rewriting the law of the land but are usurping the legitimate rights of the legislative branch to make the laws.

Foreign opinion has no relevance to US same-sex marriage

In other words, Ginsberg is promising that as elites in other countries impose elitist values on their people, the Supreme Court has the power and the duty to translate their new Left-liberal values on the American people. No more old-fashioned defense of American traditions and American constitutional precedent.

Ginsberg quotes approvingly Justice Kennedy’s opinion making same-sex relationships a constitutional right in part out of “respect for the Opinions of Humankind.” The Court emphasized, “The right the petitioners seek in this case has been accepted as an integral part of human freedom in many other countries.”

Foreign opinion irrelevant to US affirmative action policy

Thus a mechanism has been locked into place by which five appointed lawyers can redefine the meaning of the US Constitution and the policies implemented under the Constitution either by inventing rationales out of thin air or by citing whatever foreign precedent they think helpful.

Discontinue affirmative action programs

Indicate which principles you support regarding affirmative action and discrimination.
• The federal government should discontinue affirmative action programs.
• The federal government should prosecute cases of discrimination in the public sector.
• The federal government should prosecute cases of discrimination in the private sector.

ACLU has become eccentric and destructive

NEA includes most bizarre & extreme misuse of tax funds

Shocked by legal segregation in 1960s Georgia

Segregation had been erected by the southern Democratic Party to give power to white elites by splitting poor people of both races. Segregation was bitterly defended by southern white Democrats while being challenged by a coalition of northern Democrats and Republicans.

Individual rights trump group rights

If our rights are inalienable, they clearly belong to us as individuals. They cannot be taken away by the government because our Creator outranks the government. Similarly, neither can they be taken away by a group.

The very concept of group rights contradicts the nature of America. America is about the future, about "the pursuit of happiness," while group rights are about the past. America asks who you want to be. Group rights ask who your grandparents were.

1968: Led college protest over suppressing racy newspaper

America is multi-ethnic but not multi-cultural

His views also are grounded in his historical view: e pluribus unum, or out of many, one. To use his phrase, "American civilization is diverse and multiethnic, but it is one civilization." Newt finds common ground with those who argue that in diversity there is strength--but only to a point. We are multiethnic, but we are not multicultural.

Affirmative action OK individually, but not by group

"It is my belief," he said, "that affirmative action programs, if done for individuals, are good, and if done by some group distinction, are bad. Because it is antithetical to the American dream to measure people by the genetic pattern of their great-grandmothers. So, I'm very interested in rewriting the affirmative action programs so that they allow individuals to get help whether they are Appalachian white or blacks from Atlanta. But I think it ought to be based on the fact that you individually have worked hard and are trying to rise and that you come out of a background of poverty and a background of cultural need."

A reporter noted that some beneficiaries of government preferences have been subjected to discrimination for centuries. "That's been true of virtually every American."

Half-sister, a lesbian lobbyist: "Newt promotes tolerance"

The Speaker never has made much of an issue of homosexuality except to oppose its promotion in schools. In an interview with a homosexual newspaper in 1994, Gingrich said, "I think our position should be toleration. It should not be promotion and it should not be condemnation."

His half-sister disagreed, saying "A leaky faucet, a barking dog--those are the things you tolerate. While Newt is promoting tolerance, his colleagues are preparing anti-gay legislation."

Gingrich was unpersuaded, saying, "I am not prepared to establish a federal law that allows you to sue your employer if you end up not having a job because of a disagreement that involves your personal behavior."

GOP can no longer be the party of the country club

Affirmative opportunity instead of affirmative action

Conservative Republicans are. explicitly for integration and civil rights for everyone--but civil rights based on individual characteristics, not genetic code.
--Policy Review. Window 1991

We believe in affirmative opportunities for those from a culture of poverty or in genuine economic need. However, helping a millionaire's son or daughter because they fit the right quota, while denying the child of a low-income worker because they are in the wrong quota, is simply wrong. We also believe that any efforts to set up group politics based on quotas and set-asides is inherently destructive of that ideal.
--Congressional Record. January 30, 1992

Equality of opportunity, not equality of result