\WASHINGTON - Truth Wins Out is placing a provocative full-page ad in the Capitol Hill publication Roll Call on Thursday admonishing Newt Gingrich for his stunning hypocrisy on the issue of marriage equality. The ad's headline reads, "Newt Gingrich: Talks Like a Preacher, Lives Like a Porn Star." It takes the anti-gay presidential candidate to task for his adulterous affairs and serial marriages and includes an original cartoon dubbed "The Marriage-Go-Round."
TWO's hard-hitting ad comes one day before Newt Gingrich speaks at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington. The ad ends by saying, "On behalf of loving, life-long same sex couples: Newt, you are a spectacular hypocrite. Shame on you!"
"It takes breathtaking chutzpah for Newt Gingrich to deny loving, committed same-sex couples the benefits of marriage that he has enjoyed three times," said Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen. "The bizarre embrace of Gingrich by CPAC proves that modern conservatism is not 'pro-family,' it is simply anti-gay."
The ad comes in the same week that Proposition 8, California's voter-approved repeal of marriage equality, was again ruled unconstitutional in a federal appeals court. While polls show that a majority of Americans support marriage equality, GOP presidential candidates, including Gingrich, appeal to their base by promoting intolerance and discrimination:
"With today's decision on marriage by the Ninth Circuit, and the likely appeal to the Supreme Court, more and more Americans are being exposed to the radical overreach of federal judges and their continued assault on the Judeo-Christian foundations of the United States," Gingrich said in a statement about the ruling.
"The idea for this ad came on the day of my own marriage," said TWO's Besen. "As we were getting dressed to go to city hall, I heard Gingrich on television preening and prattling about the sanctity of marriage. At that moment, I decided that we had to stand up and speak out against such blatant demagoguery and brazen hypocrisy."
"Newt Gingrich must be blind not to see the glaring dissonance between his belief that he should have whatever kinds of marriages - open or otherwise -- that he wants, and his stated conviction that LGBT Americans shouldn't be allowed to marry at all," said John Becker, TWO's Director of Communications. "Loving, committed same-sex couples like my husband and me simply seek to exercise once the same freedom to marry that Mr. Gingrich has so liberally availed himself of."
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
