A website that promotes adultery has endorsed Newt Gingrich for president, and even erected a giant billboard in Pennsylvania to announce it. Next to a picture of Gingrich making a “shh” gesture, the billboard reads: “Faithful Republican, Unfaithful Husband.” Ashleymadison.com, a dating website for people looking to cheat on their spouses, welcomes visitors with the tag line, “Life is short, Have an affair.” Gingrich has admitted to cheating on his wives, and Noel Biderman, the founder of the cheaters website explained, “Now that Newt is the leading contender in the race for the GOP nomination, we felt compelled to make a point to illustrate how times have changed when a serial divorcee/adulterer is capturing the hearts of the American people.”
Newt Gingrich was in the midst of an adulterous affair when he was leading the charge to persecute President Bill Clinton for having an adulterous affair. Think about that for a moment. The hypocrisy inherent in that is stunning…and yet it barely gets any traction in the media. If a Democrat has responsible for the same sort of duplicitous, dishonest behavior, the media (and the GOP) would be crucifying the responsible party…and justifiably so.
How is it that Newt Gingrich is getting a free pass from The Family Values Party ©? Thrice married and having had been hypocritically unfaithful to at least one of his wives, we’re now supposed to take him at his word that he’s a man of integrity? Sorry, but if past performance is the best predictor of future behavior, Gingrich doesn’t come out looking good. I realize that one can learn from past mistakes (Lord knows I’ve been down that road a time or six), but you can’t credibly run for office as a “family values” candidate when you have Gingrich’s morally bankrupt track record.
That Social Conservatives/Family Values voters have even considered supporting Gingrich can and should be taken as evidence of just how morally and ethically bankrupt today’s Republican Party is. You don’t get to hold Republicans to moral standards substantially less stringent than those you demand Democrats adhere to. If you’re an adulterer, you’re an adulterer, regardless of party affiliation, and if you can support an adulterer while claiming the mantle of “family values,” you’re every bit the hypocrite and moral reprobate Newt Gingrich is.
It’s a sign of just how bad things have become when a website selling adultery has to be the one to spotlight Gingrich’s (and, by extension, the Republican Party’s) stunning hypocrisy.
GOP 2012: The Situational Ethics Party.
