From gwyn@annwfn.indstate.edu Mon Dec 12 18:24:46 1994 The Following is from the 12/07/94 issued of NY Newsday. Gabriel Rotello writes the Thursday column of "Cityscape", an op-ed column. FYI, Newt Gingrich is on the inter-net and his e-mail is:xGEORGIA6@HR.HOUSE.GOV KILLING US SOFTLY WITH HIS CONTRACT by Gabriel Rotello NY Newsday reprinted w/o permission Newt Gingrich, the openly divorced, openly remarried pillar of traditional families and former post-smoking scourge of permissive McGoverniks, is quite a piece of work. he certainly has some members of the media flummoxed. how else to explain recent news reports that a crusading hypocrite of his skill and distinction might not be the Neanderthal on gay rights we expected? We have read, for example, that he has a lesbian half-sister and gets along with her famously. We have heard that he recently told an interviewer that "on most days the vast majority of practicing homosexuals are good citizens." We have read that he wants to include gay sin the Republican effort to "renew American civilization,: and that he opposes "sex police in the YMCA bathroom," whatever that means. But the man-bites-dog quality of these kinder, gentler pronouncements should not obscure the soon-to-be speaker's actual gay agenda. Gingrich uttered most of the above before his Contract With America made him the most successful conservative since Genghis Kahn. And now that he's definitely in, gays are definitely out. Among his more ominous prouncements are those on gay employment and gay marriage. Although the speaker presumptive has said that he wants to 'dramatically improve the quality of life, the economic opportunity" of all Americans, he had very different things to say about the economic opportunities of lesbian and gay Americans. Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether he thought that "a businessman should have the right not to hire a gay person" Gingrich answered, "Absolutely. Absolutely." He also said that he is "against any law which gives you a legal status based on your sexual orientation." Workers fired from companies like Cracker Barrel because they were lesbian or gay, or even just perceived to be lesbian or gay, might be forgiven for wondering how Gingrich's position will dramatically improve their economic lives. But apparently such people are not included in his expansive version of "all Americans." Gingrich, who tried to wrest a divorce settlement from his first wife as she lay in a hospital bed recovering from a cancer operation (hey, nobody's perfect), was equally unyielding on the issue of the sanctity of marriage. In the same interview in which he said that "on most days are good citizens" (Which days? The ones we don't have sex?), Gingrich also said this: "It is madness to pretend that families are anything other than heterosexual couples. I think it goes to the core of how civilization functions. Over time we want to have an explicit bias in favor of heterosexual marriage." I'm sure that over time Gingrich hopes to enact plenty of explicit biases. He clearly aspires to be the Sam Walton of the bias business. But while supporting families is not something I or most people would oppose in these days of crime and crack and gun-toting 10-year-olds, a particular bias in favor of heterosexual marriage and against homosexual marriage seems to fly in the face of the very family values Gingrich and company espouse. Gay families have been shown again and again to be exemplary providers of the kind of nurturing, stable environments that children need. Evan Wolfson, a Lambda Legal Defense lawyer fighting for legalized gay marriage, calls it "absurd to pretend gays are not forming stable families. What Gingrich means is, he doesn't care what the facts are." Except, perhaps, the political facts. In the wake of November's Democratic debacle, which pundits increasingly and excessively attribute to Clinton's support of gays in the military, Gingrich is zooming away from his own tepid dalliance with tolerance at warp speed, and he's the one in the captain's chair. So forget all those stories about the nice new Newt. And fasten your seat belts.