Open Marriage, Insert Foot

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When it was discovered that President Obama had been in the same room a few times with William Ayers, the right talked about “character” and “behavior” nonstop. It was as if Barack Obama and William Ayers had been best friends their entire lives, stood up at each other’s weddings and ate dinner together every weekend. Now that Newt Gingrich is running for president, suddenly character doesn’t matter.

Well, it doesn’t matter to the Right but it still matters to Gingrich’s second wife, Marianne. Marianne Gingrich is a self professed conservative Republican, and she is coming forward to give her opinion of Newt Gingrich’s character. Marianne does not believe his current views on the sanctity of marriage reflect the man she knew during their 18 years of marriage.

Newt and Marianne began their affair in early 1980, while Newt was married to his first wife Jackie. In April of the same year, Newt Gingrich asked Jackie for a divorce, while she was undergoing treatment for cancer. He married Marianne, and then met Callista. In his second marriage, Newt stuck to the pattern, and instigated divorce proceedings against Marianne just months after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. However, in his second marriage, Newt did something a little different.

Marianne claims that after Newt began dating Callista, he asked Marianne for an “open marriage”, stating “Callista doesn’t care what I do.” Marianne says she just stared at him, and refused. She also says that Newt began planning a run for president, and believed Callista would help him become president.

Newt Gingrich was in the doctor’s office with his second wife when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. According to Marianne, he sat with her as the doctor told them both that she should avoid stress, as it can exacerbate the symptoms. Perhaps Newt was hoping an “open marriage” would alleviate some of the stress he, as a serial adulterer, was causing his second wife. When that didn’t work out, he called Marianne on the phone at her mother’s house, and asked for a divorce.

Newt Gingrich is denying he ever asked for an open marriage, and his daughters from his first marriage are defending him, which I find odd. Gingrich left their mother while she was fighting cancer, he had told people Jackie was not pretty enough to be first lady, and refused to pay child support until Jackie took him to court. What is there to defend?

In 2002, Newt Gingrich asked that his marriage to Marianne be annulled, as Callista Gingrich is a devout Catholic. His second marriage was annulled for an undisclosed amount and Gingrich converted to Catholicism in 2009. There is always a fee to have a marriage annulled, but to this day, no one can find out exactly how much Newt Gingrich paid the Catholic Church to make his second marriage disappear.

To recap: Newt Gingrich married his math teacher, Jackie, divorced her while she was battling cancer to marry Marianne. Jackie has to take him to court and he is forced to pay child support and alimony. Marianne is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis; Newt meets Callista, and according to Marianne, asks to have an “open marriage”, something Newt denies. When Marianne says no, Newt calls her at her mother’s house and asks for a divorce. He marries Callista in 2000, has his marriage to Marianne annulled in 2002, converts to Catholicism in 2009, and in 2011, tells a radio program on the Christian Broadcasting Network that his patriotism made him cheat. At least twice-there are rumors of many, many more affairs.

This? This is the person the right wants to run against President Obama? The morally superior (just ask them), ultra Christian right? A serial adulterer, a liar, a hypocrite, part of the old boy’s network that is C Street and K Street and a man who left his cancer stricken former math teacher for Marianne, then left Marianne after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis for Callista. And now, he has hoisted himself up as the poster boy for the sanctity of marriage. How does that work?

Thanks to ABC News and Raw Story for contributions to this article.

About Post Author

Erin Nanasi

Erin Nanasi is an avid underwater basket weaver, with a penchant for satire and the odd wombat reference.
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12 years ago

Oh, those goody-two-shoed Republicans! Republicans and Religion go hand in hand when in comes to hypocrisy! Doesn’t Christianity say that if you accept Jesus on your deathbed you will go to heaven. So, you can be as evil as you want during your life and then just accept Jesus as your saviour. It seems Gingrich knows this all too well.

No Nonsense
12 years ago

Newt is a pig! However I’m watching this closely. The nastiest of them all have dumped all over Mrs Obama for every little nuanced detail and what do they say about a woman who knows that the man she is sleeping with is a married man with children…….I hear crickets

Erin N.
Reply to  No Nonsense
12 years ago

I guess evangelical preachers are choosing sides in South Carolina, with James Dobson coming right out and asking if Christians want a mistress for First Lady, as if this entire thing is Callista’s fault. Yes, she tied Newt up and…oh I can’t finish, the visual is making me ill.

merridee
12 years ago

It sure doesn’t work for me.

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