COMMENTARY | The story that former Speaker Newt Gingrich said that gays should vote for President Barack Obama has been around the Internet and has been added to the dark legend that surrounds the presidential candidate.
The only problem is, according to Legal Insurrection, is that the story isn't true. Gingrich never said that.
The story is derived from an encounter that Gingrich had with a gay Iowan who queried him on same-sex marriage. Gingrich honestly told the man that if his most important issue was same-sex marriage, that Obama would be more his candidate than Gingrich. Gingrich, like many conservatives, opposes the legalization of same-sex marriage.
Obama's views on the subject are somewhat obscure. The New York Times reported that the president claimed that his position on same-sex marriage is "evolving." Officially, though, he is against a national law legalizing it.
It is understandable why the story about Gingrich not wanting gay votes, albeit false, caused a sensation. It would seem to violate one of the political rules of Gingrich's old political rival, the late House Speaker Tip O'Neill. O'Neill set down a number of political rules in a book entitled "All Politics is Local." Besides the famous rule that the title is derived from, O'Neill stated that if a politician does not ask for someone's vote, he or she is not likely to get it. It is a profound insight that illustrates the folly of writing off entire groups of people because of single issues.
Groups are often defined simplistically by issues: Gay voters care about same-sex marriage. Women care about abortion. Senior citizens care about Social Security and Medicare. Young voters care about sex, drugs, and how cool the candidate is. Each of these assessments is a caricature that belies how complex peoples' politics are.
Democrats like to imagine that one cannot be gay, female, young, or a minority and be a conservative. But if one cares about the size of government and the threat of terrorism and tyranny, one is more likely to be on the right, no matter what ones sexual orientation, gender, age, or race happens to be.
One suspects Gingrich knows that. So he wants everyone's vote-even from gay people.
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