One of the most difficult problems faced by Newt Gingrich in appealing to religious voters is his record of adultery and three marriages. His campaign insists that it was his first wife, Jackie, not Gingrich, who wanted the first divorce. However, recently released papers contradict that claim and indicate it was Newt Gingrich who wanted the divorce.
The campaign previously insisted that “it was (Jackie Gingrich) that requested the divorce, not Newt.”
That first divorce was particularly because Jackie was reportedly dying of cancer and rumors suggested that Newt actually served the divorce papers the day after her cancer surgery — Gingrich denies the claims as does their daughter.
CNN was told the divorce papers were sealed but it later found the documents.
Friends of both Gingrich and his first wife contradicted Gingrich’s claims about who wanted the divorce.
The papers show that Newt Gingrich filed a divorce complaint on July 14, 1980, in Carroll County, saying that “the marriage of the parties is irretrievably (sic) broken.” Even more interesting is that Jackie filed opposing the filing — a curious response if she wanted the divorce or, as the campaign claimed today, she asked him to file the papers. She added that “[a]lthough defendant does not admit that this marriage is irretrievably broken, defendant has been hopeful that an arrangement for temporary support of defendant and the two minor daughters of the parties could be mutually agreed upon without the intervention of this court . . . All efforts to date have been unsuccessful.”
Jackie Gingrich has never spoken to the media on the allegations. However, in 1985, she stated”He can say that we had been talking about it for 10 years, but the truth is that it came as a complete surprise.”
The bigger concern for evangelical voters is that Gingrich was already in a relationship with a 28-year-old congressional aide at the time. He later married the aide, Marianne Ginther Gingrich, and then divorced her 19 years later for another, and younger, congressional aide whom he married soon after his divorce. The third wife, Callista Bisek Gingrich, is now campaigning for him.
I have previously written how candidates like Gingrich who are running on faith should not complain when asked about their own commitment to faith. In this case, Gingrich clearly violated (repeatedly) an oath to God in a different ceremony. With the declining separation of church and state, such questions are likely to increase.
How relevant should that be to voters? Would it be equally relevant if he was not campaigning for religious voters?
Source: CNN
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@Mike: Patriarchy is an example of a different but related human trait; greed. Females are valuable. Men will compete for them. If a father controls his daughter as property, she is valuable property.
The virginity aspect is also biological; the point isn’t to have a satisfying sexual experience, it is to procreate. Virginity in a female is valuable because it has been (mistakenly) taken as proof of fatherhood, if a male deflowers a virgin and controls her enough to ensure he is the only one that can mate with her, then if she becomes pregnant he has ensured he is the father. If he is mating with a non-virgin and in a few months learns she is pregnant, he cannot be sure exactly when the pregancy started, and may for years be raising another man’s child.
Both of those cultural values (patriarchy and virginity) are essentially results of the inherent biological value of females. Virginity is not valued in men because it proves nothing, except perhaps ineptitude. Conquerors like Genghis (or Moses) slaughtered males and distributed females as prizes because men are expendable, but females are inherently valuable.
Tony,
I’m going to have to agree with mespo’s comment, “Like fingerprints, I find that the proclivity to be promiscuous is unique to the person and not the gender.” While what you say about general differences is choices to apply power between genders may have some general truth in it, the counter argument is Madonna or Cameron Diaz – exceptions that proves the rule. Just as gender identity has some flexibility to it, so does any preference in the expression of power along gender lines.
@Blouise: It is possible that men and women misuse power in different ways. All the scientific evidence is that men are hornier than women; men want sex more often, masturbate more often, want more variety in sexual positions, want more variety in partners, and are more easily aroused by appearance than are women. And this is true at all ages, from teenager to octegenarian. Literally hundreds, perhaps thousands of academic studies back that up, it isn’t just culture, it isn’t just folklore, it isn’t just common wisdom, it is scientific fact.
As a result, we’d expect men that abused power to abuse it for sex far more often than we’d expect women to abuse their power for sex. Women do not typically require power to have as much sex as they desire, but it is quite likely somebody like Newt has relied heavily upon power and wealth to convert “aide” to “laid.”
So I suppose in the sexual arena, I definitely expect fewer peccadillos among the women with power, but I suspect they indulge their abuse in different ways. Sarah Palin, for example, abused her expense account far more than any male has for designer fashions and personal hair and makeup artists that travelled with her at all times. Remember the ribbing Edwards got for his $400 haircut? Palin was paying her makeup artist alone something like $15K a month.
Hillary, using campaign cash, insisted on lavish quarters in Vegas costing $5000 a night, lunch costing $500 a plate with a few thousand dollars worth of wine.
So I am not saying women have no sexual desires, I am saying that power doesn’t really add anything to their ability to have those desires satisfied, like it does for men.
I do not think women with power are inherently more honorable than men with power, I think for both of them, if they abuse power, they abuse it for what they desire and could not have without the power. For men, that is often just women willing to act out their sexual fantasies. For women, I think it is often luxury, servants, attendants, personal care and in general being treated like royalty.
I will defer to your greater expertise in what women might abuse their power to get, I just doubt it is a parade of new sexual partners.
Elaine and Tony,
Watch “Unforgiven” … Clint Eastwood … star, director, and producer
“Good lawyering in service to the public with no chance of a receiving a fee. These episodes rarely get any press. ” (mespo)
That is the truth
“Like fingerprints, I find that the proclivity to be promiscuous is unique to the person and not the gender.” (mespo)
That has also been my experience
Tony,
I’m older than you. There were a number of movies in the past with that type of storyline. The first one that comes to mind is “Red Dust” starring Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, and Mary Astor. It was released in the 1930s. The movie was remade as “Mogambo” in the 1950s and starred Gable, Ava Gardner, and Grace Kelly.
Tony C.,
I’ve got to say that your take on this reminds of “The Selfish Gene” and while there are no doubt evolutionary aspects to this, such as the strategies of the different sexes in procreating, I’m not quite certain it resolves anything. A just as good an explanation for this is that of Patriarchy and the drive to keep it. Female sexuality is scary to many males, so much so that to my mind they would irrationally prefer virgins as mates. I have long believed women should be considered equals by men and that those who don’t consider them equals are dealing with greater issues than the biological imperative. Ours and other society’s are obsessed with punishing the female for her sexuality and our art and images reflect that. I’ve always preferred strong women. I’ve married one and helped raise two. As a Father I was never very interested in my daughters sexuality, once I was sure they had the knowledge to deal with it in an informed manner and the maturity to make good choices. This occurred in their mid-teens and I never even met many of their boyfriends, or knew if they had them at a given time.
Tony C.,
I’m not belittling the points you’ve raised though I can understand why you might think I was being somewhat cavalier and I sincerely apologize for that.
I do, however, think that there is more at play in this matter than pure biological factors or even the social mores “it is women that learn to reject them.” (Tony) … though that point trends more in the direction I am going.
I started performing on stage at the age of 4 and by the time I had reached full puberty in my teams I was a pretty big fish in an expanding pond. I also possessed, along with the well trained musical talent, a charisma of which I was fully aware and able to turn off and on at will. Add to that a pleasing physical appearance and the intellect to grasp insights into my own failings … well, I was a huge danger to my own future.
At the age of 16 my lawyer, my voice and cello coach, and my father (all males) sat me down to explain the facts of life. They didn’t want to talk about sexual intercourse that could lead to pregnancy or disease … they figured my mother had handled that category. They wanted to talk about power and how that power attracted men (and women) and how foolish misuse of that power to satisfy sexual urges or emotional wants could easily kill my expanding career and ruin the potential success that was in front of me.
They explained that the power flowing out of a good performance should be seen as just that, a performance and never, never should I infuse that power into my off stage life nor be confused that those who were drawn to the power of the performance were at all interested in doing anything other than conquering it for their own emotional gratification or financial gain.
I was advised to be-ware and be-smart and always bring my intellect to bear on my emotions before acting out. At the moment of your greatest success is also the moment you are most vulnerable to your own failure.
My lawyer (he remained my lawyer throughout my career … and beyond) was an “Entertainment” lawyer and a young man at the time he began representing me. He had many clients and gave his “Beware the Power” speech many times over the years and he always bemoaned the fact that the majority of his female clients took the matter to heart whilst the majority of his male clients did not.
Why is that I wonder and is that not not a part of what we see in the difference between male and female politicians? So, I repeat what I wrote at the beginning of this missive … “it is women that learn to reject them.”(Tony) … though that point trends more in the direction I am going.
Power, Tony … do women handle it better than men?
@Elaine: (Re Julia Roberts) I was going to mention that.
There are also movies in which the kind-hearted “woman of easy virtue” loses the guy to the gal with upstanding reputation.
I cannot recall any. Are they popular?
The typical romantic fiction has a male that is successful, or born to wealth or power. The female is beautiful, but in trouble or distress. The guy saves the girl and they live happily ever after. Morality seldom enters into it; the storyline is embedded in the psyche of dozens of cultures for hundreds of years. Cinderella wins her prince on beauty alone. Heck, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty did not even have to be conscious to win their respective princes. Women need not acomplish anything at all in romantic fiction, their value is in their beauty.
One exception I can think of is “The Truth About Cats & Dogs”, which worked, but even there the female lead character (played by Janeane Garofalo) is terrified of rejection on the basis of her appearance, so the script writer acknowledges the pre-eminence of beauty, and the entire movie is basically about how she overcomes that obstacle.
Elaine, CNN and other news outlets got it from Craig Hardegree, Esq. after he snagged the file from the bowels of the clerk’s files and posted them online as Scribd files. Despite what CNN, Bloomberg and others thought, the file had never been sealed. It had been hidden for fear the file might be stolen when Newt became a public figure, and the sealed part was just a cover story by the local officials of the time as an explanation as to why the file was not in the regular file drawer.
As I posted earlier, and for those who missed it, here is the back story straight from Craig. Having worked in many small towns, with many small town lawyers, this is how home cookin’ works.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/26/1044354/-How-I-Obtained-the-First-Ever-Released-Copy-of-Newts-1980-Divorce-File?via=siderec
Tony C.
I wrote:
“Can’t end a film with a whore riding off into the sunset with the hero at her side.”
I should have added: Unless, of course, the woman of easy virtue is Julia Roberts who is really just the girl next door down on her luck and trying to earn tuition for art school.
mespo,
From the CNN article:
“After initially being told that the divorce documents were sealed, CNN on Thursday obtained the folder containing the filings in the divorce, which had been stashed away for years in a Carroll County, Georgia, court clerk’s drawer.”
There is no mention of how or from whom CNN obtained the file.
*****
I always believe in giving credit where credit is due.
It should be relevant to voters in several ways. Religious people are often extremely hypocritical, claiming their virtue while acting in ways that are inhumane, cruel and repulsive. This is true of “leaders” and “followers”.
Here we have an example of a man who is a cheater and a liar. For evangelical voters he can repent and their problem with Newt is solved. For Obama supporters, Newt’s horrible character and actions are a rich source of hypocrisy. While they decry someone who is a liar and cheating bastard they fail to apply this same test to their own lying and cheating bastard president. So, the formula becomes: lying, cheating bastard who is Republican is bad while lying, cheating bastard who is Democrat–he gets my vote.
That is simply hypocrisy.
All candidates, including the president should be asked, in detail, how it is that 1. god speaks to them, 2. which god is it that is speaking to them and 3. what happens when god is telling one person one thing and another person the exact opposite. They should be asked what part of the bible they draw from in waging multiple wars against civilians, and where they get the idea that their highest good in life is to protect those who torture and the wealthy thieves who have brought down the economy. I’m not saying they can’t point to passages in the bible which justify these things, I just want to hear them calmly explain their reasoning on all these issues.
I would also like religious voters to examine their own views. Where in their religious texts does it say that one should support a candidate/president who kills civilians, protects torturers and the wealthy? If this is justified, then isn’t it justified whether someone is Republican or Democratic? If it is not justified, then wouldn’t it be wrong to support someone who did these things whether they were Republican or Democratic?
Jill. Absolutely.
Apparently they managed to skip over Article VI of the Constitution:
“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
Like fingerprints, I find that the proclivity to be promiscuous is unique to the person and not the gender.
Elaine M:
What’s your take on the CNN reporter taking credit for uncovering the file? Were it not for Craig Hardegree, Esq. (as pointed out and referenced by OS in his comment above citing the dailykos article), there would be no file. Hardegree, motivated by his belief in open government, was prepared to litigate the issue of the availability of the file, but found it unnecessary when it was determined the file was never sealed, merely secreted away by the former clerk for “safekeeping.”
Good lawyering in service to the public with no chance of a receiving a fee. These episodes rarely get any press. They don’t fit the greedy lawyer stereotype pushed by our corporate wannabe masters.
Tony C.,
There are also movies in which the kind-hearted “woman of easy virtue” loses the guy to the gal with upstanding reputation. Can’t end a film with a whore riding off into the sunset with the hero at her side.
“In scientific studies conducted on campuses, researchers recruited students to approach members of the opposite sex they considered fairly attractive and proposition them, with a polite script, to get together later for the purpose of sleeping together. 75% of the men propositioned agreed to the date, and those that declined made polite excuses. Not a single woman propositioned agreed, and some of them reacted with irritation, anger and insults.”
Does that prove the biological imperative–or could social mores have something to do with the different responses of the males and females?
*****
“For a man, evolution succeeded by erring on the side of 24/7 sexual readiness.”
Especially if a man has a prescription for Cialis or Viagra in the medicine cabinet!
@Blouise: Yes, both breasts being the same size, that is symmetry.
I see no need to leave it alone; I am talking about proven psychological science, we can measure even tiny amounts of sexual response, in both men and women, in the lab, using digital sensors. If the girls want to giggle that the man doesn’t know what he is talking about, I figure they can ignore reality at their own peril.
Symmetry means what it means, the left side looks like a mirror image of the right side, and both men and women register variations in symmetry of the face to the fraction of a millimeter, without consciously realizing it. So much so that in order to get test pictures of faces with perfect symmetry, researchers actually do just photo-shop it with a mirror image.
Women have always been promiscuous … ask any nurse who runs the blood tests on newborns.
Not in the sense of men being promiscuous. Evolutionarily speaking women can gain a small survival advantage for their offspring by having babies by multiple fathers, but the promiscuity tends to be serialized and tied to the independence cycle of a typical child, about two years. It is evolution working on female psychology that makes women look for some commitment on the part of the male in helping to raise a child for those few years, to provide for her and protect her while she is pregnant.
But once a woman is pregnant, she’s pregnant. Having sex every day is not going to increase the number of her offspring. After giving birth, until she is done nursing having sex would actually decrease the survival chance of her newborn. Evolution took care of that by diminishing the sexual drive of women on average.
That isn’t true for a man. For a man, evolution succeeded by erring on the side of 24/7 sexual readiness. Every time he has sex with a woman it increases the chance of more offspring, and every different woman is another chance to have offspring. Evolution is what makes the male psychology less picky and easily aroused by appearance alone, males do not need to look for commitment. If they get the woman pregnant, she is committed by biology. For the same base psychology reasons, it is almost exclusively men that rape, and primarily men that are market for pornography.
As for women, historical or otherwise, that have been promiscuous or sex-addicted, evolution is not an exact scientist, it is a gambler that plays the odds. We cannot point at one lottery winner and claim the lottery is profitable, any more than we can point at one lottery loser and claim that the lottery is a waste of money. You need to look at the averages, or general trend.
What is that for the sexuality of men and women? Since the advent of birth control, it is true that women have been freed in many respects, and that has given them power in their relationships, and reduced the power of males in relationships. A male can no longer bargain with a woman’s father for her hand in marriage, a female can indulge herself with attractions without worrying about a need for commitment.
But the fundamental truth remains that women bear a much greater risk in sex than men do, and on average men have to pursue and court women far more than women have to pursue or court men. It is men that must get accustomed to rejection, it is women that learn to reject them.
In scientific studies conducted on campuses, researchers recruited students to approach members of the opposite sex they considered fairly attractive and proposition them, with a polite script, to get together later for the purpose of sleeping together. 75% of the men propositioned agreed to the date, and those that declined made polite excuses. Not a single woman propositioned agreed, and some of them reacted with irritation, anger and insults.
Even in romantic comedies where the power dynamic is turned on its head, like in Pretty Woman, in the end it is the rich, powerful, handsome man that must submit to the commitment demands of the pretty hooker. That is what the audience expects, for a happy ending.
Let the giggling commence!
Newt Gingrich: “Any ad which quotes what I said Sunday is a falsehood.”