Speaking at the Thanksgiving Family Forum GOP presidential debate yesterday, Newt Gingrich claimed that the left is trying to destroy religion and that liberals are thus a threat to civilization.
If you look at the history, from the mid-1960s, we've gone from a request for toleration to an imposition of intolerance. We've gone from a request to understand others to a determination to close down those who hold traditional values. And it strikes me at a number of levels. First, that on the opening day, I would have an executive order to reinstate George W. Bush's conscience clause and to extend it to adoption agencies and other religious services. Second, I would encourage a bill to cut off all federal funds to any jurisdiction, state or local, which in fact discriminates against religious beliefs, in that format. And third, I think that we need to be very aggressive and very direct. The degree to which the left is prepared to impose intolerance and to drive out of existence traditional religion is a mortal threat to our civilization and deserves to be taken head on and described as what it is, which is the use of government to repress the American people against their own values.
The debate was sponsored by The Family Leader, a far right group in Iowa that asked that GOP candidates sign a divisive and intolerant pledge against gays, Muslims, single parents, and others who do not represent "family values" according to the group's definition.
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