Hypocrisy Alert: Mr. Gingrich Calls for Mr. Obama's Impeachment Over DOMA

*Another update to a story about which I blogged recently: a few days ago, I noted Newt Gingrich's refusal this week to engage a question a student at the University of Pennsylvania asked him.   Isabel Friedman asked Gingrich, who is currently gearing up to run as a Republican presidential candidate in 2012, how he thinks he can credibly attack gay persons and gay rights, given his own far from stellar marital history, with three wives and several publicly known affairs.

My posting also noted that, though some of my co-religionists are suggesting that it is a non sequitur to ask a presidential candidate (who is also a Catholic) whether his life history supports the values he claims to espouse in attacking gay folks, I myself see questions like this as an extension of the Catholic sacramental principle.  There is an intrinsic and important connection between what we teach and who we are.  The latter is our real message to the world.  Actions (and lives) speak far louder than words.

And so attacking gay persons and gay lives as morally beyond the pale when one hops from marriage bed to marriage bed with adulterous beds in between is not only morally inconsistent--it's morally odious.  The huge chasm between what one imposes on others as a moral standard and what one permits oneself is so glaringly obvious that the disconnect is about more than a flawed hermeneutic device: it's about blatant, unabashed hypocrisy.  And a cynical attempt to manipulate others while one clearly does not care a fig about the "values" one's using to perform that manipulation.

And now there's this: when the Obama administration announced this week that it will not defend DOMA, Newt Gingrich responded with a call for the impeachment of the president. That's right: defending traditional marriage and the sanctity of the marriage of one man with one woman for life is of such critical importance to this Catholic presidential candidate that he stands ready to impeach President Obama because his administration has decided that legislation targeting a vulnerable minority for no reason other than that the minority exists is unconstitutional.

It will be interesting to watch Mr. Gingrich position himself as a shining standard-bearer of Catholic values in the upcoming presidential campaign.  And interesting, above all, to see how many of his co-religionists let him get away with the shameful posturing.

*Apologies for the previous incorrect title.  I should definitely not post a posting in haste!