With his campaign reeling from mass defections among his senior staff and fundraising team, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Wednesday stressed his commitment to defend the role of religion in the public square from judicial activism.
While once ranked as one of the top tier of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, the Georgia Republican has stumbled badly in recent months with a lackluster start to his campaign, lethargic fundraising and revelations regarding lines of credit at Tiffanys.
His poll numbers have been declining -- spurred by the consistently high disapproval ratings Gingrich has near-universally received. Two weeks ago the Gingrich campaign effort was jolted by a mass exodus from staffers up in arms over the candidates recent vacation in Greece -- while ignoring the campaign trail in Iowa and New Hampshire.
On Tuesday, less than two weeks after his senior staff bailed on him, Gingrichs finance leadership team walked out on the campaign. Jody Thomas and Mary Heitman, both of whom were working on Gingrichs fundraising efforts, abandoned ship.
While whats left of his team looks to get the Gingrich bandwagon back on track, the candidate himself focused on religion in the public square on Wednesday, taking aim a federal judges ruling in Texas that pulls the plug on a prayer at a high school graduation.
Can you imagine high school administrators being threatened with jail if their students said any of the following words? Prayer, stand, bow your heads, or amen? demanded Gingrich. Can you imagine a graduation ceremony in which the word invocation was replaced with opening remarks and benediction was replaced with closing remarks by order of a federal judge? Or a judge declaring that such an order would be enforced by incarceration or other sanctions for contempt of court if not obeyed'?
"This sounds like a scenario that might occur under a dictatorship, but it happened earlier this month in the Medina Valley Independent School District near San Antonio, Texas. It is just one recent example of how anti-religious many on the Left have become.
Gingrich pounded NBC and President Barack Obama for omitting religious references in recent weeks.
It is bad enough that NBC revealed its anti-religious bias by editing out under God from the Pledge of Allegiance last weekend, continued Gingrich. It is bad enough that President Obama has skipped the phrase our Creator at least four times when citing the Declaration of Independence, even when the teleprompter read that we are endowed by our Creator. At least, neither NBC nor President Obama threatened to put anyone in jail.
Federal District Judge Fred Biery issued the order to stop the school's valedictorian from saying a prayer as part of her graduation speech. He did so in the name of the First Amendment, which is supposed to prevent government prohibitions of the free exercise of religion and protect the freedom of speech, added Gingrich. Judge Biery's decision clearly is not about defending the Constitution. It is the anti-religious judicial speech police at work here in America.
Gingrich called for Bierys removal and, quoting Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist papers as well as Hamiltons rival Thomas Jefferson, insisted that the founders never intended for judges to have free rein to interpret the Constitution according to their own ideological purposes.
As a first step toward reining in an out-of-control, anti-religious bigotry on the bench, let's start with this modest suggestion: Judge Biery's office should be abolished by Congress. He should go home, stated Gingrich. The American people would be better off without a judge whose anti-religious extremism leads him to ban a high school valedictorian from saying even the word prayer.
Gingrich is not the only candidate in the Republican field who is looking to defend religion in the public square. Former Alabama state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore is best known for his defense of the Ten Commandments monument in his courthouse and has made religion in the public square one of the chief issues of his underdog bid for the Republican nomination. Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a Catholic, has maintained that his religious beliefs can and should guide his actions in office.
Marking the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedys speech to Protestant ministers in Houston in which JFK said his Catholic faith would not guide his actions in the White House, Santorum insisted that his own beliefs would influence his policies if he were elected president in 2012.
Gingrich converted to Catholicism in 2009 despite his two divorces. Callista Gingrich, with whom the former congressional leader became involved while still married to his second wife, is a Catholic and helped guide her husband toward her faith. In 2010, the Gingriches produced "Nine Days That Changed the World," a documentary on Blessed John Paul IIs visit to his native country of Poland in 1979, when it was still a communist nation.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.
