MANCHESTER, N.H. — During Saturday night’s GOP primary debate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich blasted what he said was anti-Christian bigotry in the media, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry promised to end what he sees as the Obama administration’s “war on religion.”
“The bigotry question goes both ways,” Gingrich said, inserting himself into the discussion after a series of questions related to contraception, gay marriage and gay adoption. The former speaker charged that the focus on social issues indicated media bias.
“And there’s a lot more anti-Christian bigotry today than there is concerning the other side. And none of it gets covered by the news media.”
Gingrich specifically knocked a question about whether the assembled candidates would allow gay couples to adopt.
“You don’t hear the opposite question asked,” he explained.
“Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won’t accept gay couples, which is exactly what the state has done? Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won’t give in to secular bigotry? Should the Catholic Church find itself discriminated against by the Obama administration on key delivery of services because of the bias and the bigotry of the administration?”
Shortly after Gingrich’s attack on the media, Texas Gov. Rick Perry pivoted from a question about whether he would consider a third-party run to promise that if elected president he would end what he called “this administration’s war on religion.”
“When we see an administration that will not defend the Defense of Marriage Act, that gives their Justice Department clear instructions to go take the ministerial exception away from our churches where that’s never happened before, when we see this administration not giving money to Catholic charities for sexually trafficked individuals because they don’t agree with the Catholic church on abortion, that is a war against religion. And it’s going to stop under a Perry administration.”