Is Newt Gingrich really an anti-gay bigot?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

His sister thinks he may be faking it:

Newt Gingrich's openly lesbian half-sister, Candace Gingrich-Jones, says her brother is stuck in a '90s time warp. And she's not sure if he even believes all the anti-gay rhetoric or not.

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Gingrich-Jones, an activist with the Human Rights Campaign Foundation who has clashed with her brother since the '90s and is backing President Obama for re-election, slammed the caustic remarks Gingrich has made about gays, including his comments earlier in the year that gay marriage is a "temporary aberration."

"An interesting choice of words -- 'temporary aberration' -- I don't think I consider my own marriage an aberration, or that anyone who is in a relationship considers their families to be an aberration," she said. "It might be wishful thinking on his part. Certainly he's seen how the country has moved on the issue. Maybe what really is an aberration is people's opposition to marriage equality."

She's also not sure if Gingrich is faking it all, pandering to the evangelical base in the Republican Party, or if he really believes the claims he makes on homosexuality and LGBT rights.

Because apparently he treats her and her wife well. How nice of him.

Look, it would hardly be surprising to learn that Newt is just pandering to the right, particularly at a time when pandering to the right is the only way to get ahead in the GOP. (Just ask Mitt.) What is abundantly clear, after all, to anyone who has paid Newt even the slightest attention over the years, is that he doesn't really seem to believe in anything other than himself, and more specifically "Newt," the Gingrich brand, which pulls in millions for him. He is a man with extreme ambition, and with the ability to self-promote and self-aggrandize, but also a man largely without principle, a conservative, to be sure, but a conservative willing to do and say whatever it takes to enhance "Newt" and maximize profits.

And so it hardly matters that he may not be a bigot in private, with his family, and may not actually be one. In public, where he promotes a political agenda, however opportunistic, and seeks election, he has proven himself to be a bigot, and that's all that really counts in his case. Not really being a bigot is no excuse, and neither is having to say certain things to get ahead in the GOP. No one is forcing him to present himself as a bigot, and if he's willing to present himself as one just to win some votes, well, that shows just how pathetic, and just how truly unprincipled, he really is.