Queer Quote: Gingrich Accepts "Reality" of Gay Marriage

Getty

Well, well, well! Maybe miracles can happen after all. (Not!) The thrice-married, serial adulterer and Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has apparently evolved on the question of marriage equality.

In an interview with Huffington Post Gingrich said the following, which is today's queer quote.

"It is in every family. It is in every community. The momentum is clearly now in the direction in finding some way to ... accommodate and deal with reality. And the reality is going to be that in a number of American states -- and it will be more after 2014 -- gay relationships will be legal, period."

It may not be clear from the context, but the "it" in Gingrihc's quote is "marriage for same sex couples." It's quite a big deal that Republicans are starting to embrace reality ni any form, but that it is happening on the question of marriage equality is astonishing.

And Gingrich, while still maintaining his heterosexual supremacist bonafides by insisting that he still believes marriage is only between a man and a woman, also said that he could accept a distinction between "marriage in a church from a legal document issued by the state."

Well, duh! That's what we've been talking about the whole time: civil marriage. Civil marriage is about going down to some out of the way crappy government building and getting an official piece of paper from a bored bureaucrat which allows one to access all the rights, benefits and responsibilities of marriage. It has absolutely nothing to do with whatever people do in a church. That's called a wedding. You're not married under the law until you actually sign the marriage license issued by the government and get your official marriage certificate back.