Newt's Crafty Ploy: Outfox the Values Voters In South Carolina

It's another sample of Newt Gingrich's crafty redefinition of his own soiled character: Being "scrubbed up" by his knelling confession to the great Dr. Dobson, and additionally (for good measure), Newt's subsequent bold decision to convent to Roman Catholicism.

"From a Catholic point of view, Newt's sins no longer exist-they've been absolved. He's made a fresh start in life. So Newt will continue to sin and confess but there aren't going to be a lot of Catholics who will hold that against him. They understand why being a Catholic makes a difference." 

Source: Reported by based on Max Blumenthal's conversation with Deal Hudson, a Catholic political adviser to President Bush and Karl Rove, founder of the seminal Catholic journal, Crisis magazine.

Newt's conversion was all "a cold hard calculation." It was Newt's choreographed attempt to enter the "sacred circle" of the "born again" which satisfies the soulful approval/acceptance by the far right religious base of the GOP. It's these folk who go "all out" in blind support for a high profile "redemption" testimony.

There it is: Gingrich's grandiose game plan - lay claim to the "open-armed" "welcoming willingness" of millions of Fundamentalist, Evangelicals, and Pentecostals to believe in, and accept the sexually addicted Gingrich into the company of the "saved"-all scrubbed up.

BUT is it real?

Is it morally transformative?

Is it believable?

Is it a calculated sham?
Will it work to win over Protestant Evangelicals?

Newt's 180 degree turn to Catholicism, is it a deceptive device to find favor and "redemptive acceptance" from the Religious Right voting base in spite of his life-long low-life sexual history?

Conservative students at Catholic University protested Newt's showy conversion:

"When Catholic University announced in January 2005 that Newt Gingrich would deliver a speech on campus, a group of students rose up in protest, accusing the twice-divorced, admitted philanderer of violating the Catholic values that their school was founded upon."
-- Max Blumenthal

Excerpt from Huffington Post, "Newt Gingrich Marriage Infidelities: Church Forgives, But Voters?":

"On the issue of him cheating on wife one with wife two, and on wife two with wife three, and the hypocrisy that comes along with Gingrich being a key figure in the Bill Clinton impeachment process, it's not going to be lost on many evangelicals, who do care about sexual morality," said Laura Olsen, a political science professor at Clemson University in South Carolina.

"BUT A BIG PART OF EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY IS THAT WE ARE A FALLEN HUMANITY AND WE ARE NEVER GOING TO LIVE UP TO PERFECT IDEAL. ... IT'S MORE OF A QUESTION OF SAYING 'I HAVE MADE A MISTAKE, I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MISTAKE AND I NEED TO TURN TO GOD,'" OLSEN SAID.

"Roman Catholics such as Gingrich -- he converted to the religion of his wife in 2010 and has fashioned himself as a Christian fighting an increasingly secular world -- differ substantially from evangelical Protestants in several ways, from their belief that bread and wine transform into the blood and body of Christ during Mass to the role of the pope and priesthood.

"But when it comes to forgiveness, there are similarities. While Catholics are required to confess their sins to priests in order to be absolved, they are also encouraged to pray and confess in private to God, as is common among evangelicals, who tend to identify with an experience of personal conversion, a strong personal relationship with God and a need to spread the gospel. Both strains of Christianity uphold the varied interpretations of the original sin, the idea that either humans or humanity lost innocence after the fall of Adam and Eve.

"In the Roman Catholic Church, where civil divorces aren't recognized, Gingrich also has needed to convince authorities that his previous marriages were not really marriages.

"Gingrich began the annulment process, which may take years, in 2002 with a request that the Archdiocese of Atlanta declare "null" his marriage to his second wife, Marianne Gingrich. Church observers believe he asked around the same time to annul his first marriage. Both requests presumably were successful, as Gingrich is now in good standing with the church.

"Church records on annulments are kept confidential and Gingrich's current priest, Msgr. Walter Rossi of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., declined to talk specifics about his parishioner. Experts in canon law, the internal rules of the church, say it's unlikely that a twice-divorced and twice-remarried man could join a Catholic church without his previous marriages being annulled."
(emphasis added)

Ask any of the 150 Texas Far Right Religious Leaders who endorsed Santorum how they stand on high moral principle. Some of that crowd still hold support for Newt rather than Santorum. They plan to promote an endorsement for Gingrich in spite of his past immoral sexual behaviors. He said that's past history, didn't he?

Where's the Moral Consistency in the behavior of these Gingrich supporting Texas 150; self-proclaimed religio-politicians and moral leaders?

What does it say about the "values voters" and their endangered commitment to God's 10 Commandments, when "winning at politics" undermines their moral principles and basic religious values?

See also:
Obama is the Anti-Christ & Dead Jerry Falwell has sent urgent word from Paradise “Vote Gingrich”
Let the government be the government & Let the church be the church.

Original.