Jakes Blasts GOP Support of Gingrich Over Romney

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Jakes Blasts GOP Support of Gingrich Over Romney

By: Frederick Cosby, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com
Bishop T.D. Jakes blasted Republicans who support former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for president over Mitt Romney.

Bishop T.D. Jakes blasted Republicans who support former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for president largely because rival candidate Mitt Romney is a Mormon and offered harsh words about Gingrich's idea that poor children toil as janitors in their schools to develop a work ethic.

Appearing on "Washington Watch with Roland Martin" Sunday, Jakes noted that Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, appears to be getting the same treatment that President Barack Obama gets from some Christians and evangelicals who insist that he's a Muslim.

Jakes, pastor of the 30,000-member Potter’s House in Dallas, said he's baffled that some people won’t vote for former Romney because of his religious faith, but they'll eagerly pull the lever for Gingrich, a thrice-married, twice-divorced adulterer.

"The thing that's amazing to me about it is that the people who question whether he is legitimately a Christian because he is a Mormon don't seem concerned about somebody running who is not a Christian at all," Jakes said, alluding to Gingrich’s marital transgressions. "So that rationale says, 'We are more comfortable with having a sinner in a position of leadership than we are a Mormon,' when the Bible says 'Righteousness exalts a nation, and sin is a reproach to any people.'"

"I really get frustrated," Jakes added, "because we don’t seem to understand that whether we have a Christian in the White House, or a Mormon, or an African-American, or whatever, you cannot be the president of African-Americans or the president of Christians. You have to be president of the United States.”

Gingrich has become the front-runner in the GOP presidential sweepstakes leading into next month's Iowa caucuses despite a somewhat randy past.

His first wife was his high school teacher. Some media reports say he discussed divorce with her while she was hospitalized with cancer, a charge that he denies.

While married to his second wife, Gingrich had an affair with a congressional aide, who is now his third wife. The affair was going on while Gingrich was leading the charge for then-President Bill Clinton’s impeachment over his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

But Gingrich's personal past doesn't seem to be a problem for many Christian, evangelical and Tea Party supporters who don't want Romney to be the Republican nominee. Gingrich insists he's a changed man who recently converted to Catholicism.

"I’ve made mistakes at times," he said during a televised Republican debate Saturday night. "I’ve had to go to God for forgiveness."

Though Gingrich says there a new Newt, Jakes believes that Gingrich’s recent comments about the poor smacked of the Old Newt.

While campaigning in Iowa, Gingrich said the nation's current child labor laws are "truly stupid" and that "really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works."

"They literally have no habit of showing up on Monday," Gingrich said. "They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of 'I do this, and you give me cash,' unless it's illegal."

He suggested that poor children be allowed to work in their schools as janitors or assistant librarians as a way to earn money and develop work habits.

Jakes said that he doubts Gingrich "knows anybody that lives in a project."

"To stereotypically say that they’re monolithic means that you really don't have your hands on the facts," Jakes said. "Let’s look at the school systems. Let’s look at the educational (system) that prepares them to go out and find a decent job. No, they don’t want to get up in the morning and just sweep streets. They have goals and dreams just like anybody else’s children, and I think there are a myriad of problems that play into some of the reprehensible communities that we have right now, and how we solve them is far more complicated than a sound bite.”

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i neva know dis bout Gingrich

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">His first wife was his high school teacher</div></div> kinky..wonder how an wen dat romance started...

[evanovitch]

Re: i neva know dis bout Gingrich

Newt Gingrich divorced first wife 'because she wasn't pretty enough to be First Lady'
By Meghan Keneally

27th December 2011


Newt Gingrich divorced his first wife because she wasn't pretty enough, an aide has claimed.

The source told CNN that the GOP presidential candidate dumped Jackie Battley because she wasn't 'young or pretty enough' to be the wife of the leader of the country.

<span style="font-weight: bold">Court records now contradict his version of events when it comes to the end of his first marriage, as they show that his then-wife Battley did not want to get a divorce like he has claimed previously.</span>

In an effort to lessen the blow that his tumultuous private life has had on his image as a God-loving conservative, Mr Gingrich has repeatedly claimed that both he and Jackie wanted a divorce, and he filed the complaint after she asked him to.


<span style="font-weight: bold">The original court records that CNN found, however, dispute that version of events. </span>

Mr Gingrich married Jackie Battley, <span style="font-weight: bold">his former high school geometry teacher seven years his senior, in 1962.</span> Two daughters and 18 years later, the couple divorced.

<span style="font-weight: bold">Aside from the fact that Mr Gingrich had taken up with Marianne Ginther, who would end up being his second wife, the more controversial aspect of the divorce proceedings include a rumored incident where Mr Gingrich served Jackie with divorce papers in the hospital as she was recovering from surgery.</span>


<span style="font-style: italic">In this version of events, a screaming match ensued in the hospital room as Jackie lay in the bed recovering from a tumor-removal surgery. </span>

In Mr Gingrich's version, however, the couple had already talked about the divorce before the hospital visit, and he went there only with the intention of bringing his two daughters to see their mother.
Their daughter Jackie Gingrich Cushman even came to her father's defence and wrote an article for Creators.com last year backing up his claims.


She described the scene of her parents sitting she and her sister down at the kitchen table and telling them they were going to divorce before her mother went in to have a benign tumor removed. She wrote that some months later, her father took the girls to visit their ailing mother in the hospital.

'It is this visit that has turned into the infamous hospital visit about which many untruths have been told. I won't repeat them. You can look them up online if you are interested in untruths,' she wrote.

'As with many divorces, it was hard and painful for all involved, but life continued,' she wrote.
Mr Gingrich has even cited his daughter’s article as evidence that his version of events is correct.
‘This story is a vicious lie,’ he writes of the rumored hospital visit story. ‘It was first reported by a left wing magazine in the 1980s based on hearsay and has survived in left-wing chat rooms on the Internet until today. It is completely false. ‘
In fact, the court documents say otherwise.
Coming to Dad's defence: Newt's daughter Jackie Gingrich Cushman, from his first marriage to Jackie Battley, defended his version of the story
Jackie Battley asks the judge to reject her husband's request for a divorce in hopes that they would sort their issues out amicably.

<span style="font-weight: bold">'Defendant shows that she has adequate and ample grounds for divorce, but that she does not desire one at this time,' the files read.
'Defendant does not admit that this marriage is irretrievably broken.'</span>

Clearly, her pleas were not met.

Battley spoke publicly about being in the hospital after her third cancer surgery when her then-husband came to visit in a piece written for the Washington Post in 1985.

'He wanted to discuss the terms of the divorce while I was recovering from the surgery. To say I gave up a lot for the marriage is the understatement of the year.'
'It came as a complete surprise,' she said.
Court papers show Gingrich initially refused to pay alimony, a claim echoed by Gingrich’s former friend and early congressional campaign treasurer Leonard Carter.
On the trail: Newt and Callista regularly campaign together

Carter told CNN a church had to launch a food drive for Battley and her two daughters as a result and that he and the presidential hopeful ended their friendship over Gingrich's apparent callous treatment of his then-wife.

'(Gingrich) said, &quot;You know and I know that she’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of a President,&quot;' Carter recalled.

CNN said it was initially told the divorce documents were sealed, but that a reporter found the files a court clerk’s drawer in Carroll County, Georgia.

Clerks claimed the fire had been removed from the public records room in 1994 out of fear of theft.

The discovery of those documents could prove problematic for Mr Gingrich as his personal life has become an easy - and effective - target for his opponents' attack ads.
At the height of his run, Mr Gingrich was leading with 33 per cent in national polls, 11 points above his closest rival Mitt Romney, but now he only comes in 3.2 per cent higher than Mr Romney.
The truest test of the impact his storied personal life will come on January 3, when the first primary is held in Iowa.
Of all states, Iowa will be interesting for Mr Gingrich as the state is home to a significant number of conservative voters. Though Mr Gingrich has consistently tried to brand himself as the most conservative candidate of the crowded Republican field, his three marriages don’t help to paint him in a favourable light for that family values-centric demographic.
He has yet to respond to the court papers, but he will certainly be asked about it in the coming days as he plans to do some final touring of the Iowa countryside in a last-ditch attempt to get his name out to the voters.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...l#ixzz1hxy1CQnO