On Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich participated in a conference call to conservative Christian supporters<\/a>. In a statistical tie with fellow contender Mitt Romney<\/a> in the upcoming Florida primary, Gingrich is trying to win the support of as many evangelicals and religious conservatives as possible<\/a>, a demographic that Romney has had a hard time winning over<\/a>. During the call, which had around 1000 participants, and was moderated by Jim \u201cCracking Da Vinci\u2019s Code\u201d<\/em> Garlow<\/a>, Gingrich called same-sex marriage a \u201cfundamental violation of our civilization\u201d<\/a><\/em> that illustrates the \u201crise of paganism\u201d<\/em> in the United States.<\/p>\n httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CksdsnZ3wHE<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty simple: marriage is between a man and a woman. This is a historic doctrine driven deep into the Bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and it\u2019s a perfect example of what I mean by the rise of paganism. The effort to create alternatives to marriage between a man and a woman are perfectly natural pagan behaviors<\/strong>, but they are a fundamental violation of our civilization.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Gingrich also doubled down on earlier statements<\/a> by saying during the call that \u201ca lot of what surrounds us today is paganism,\u201d<\/em> drawing parallels to Christianity during ancient Rome. In Gingrich\u2019s mind secularism and paganism seem to be one and the same<\/a>, a force that joins Islam in a two-pronged \u201cwar\u201d<\/em> against\u00a0Christianity. You can download and listen to the entire conference call, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n I have two responses to Gingrich\u2019s comments, and this conference call. First, for a historian, Gingrich seems to have a shaky grasp on the history of marriage. Marriage has been an ever-shifting thing<\/a>, practiced in a number of ways<\/a>, and Christians did not always treat it as a holy condition. I\u2019m certainly happy to agree that Pagans are open towards creating \u201calternatives\u201d to the modern rigid constructions of this social contract envisioned by conservative Christians<\/a>, but I part ways with candidate Gingrich on the idea that this is a \u201cviolation\u201d<\/em> of Western civilization. Perhaps he should remember that is was the \u201cpagans\u201d he seems to have no trouble vilifying that invented Western civilization.<\/p>\n My second response has to do with Florida. While it may seem like good politics to construct religious straw men that Christians can alternatively fear and revile, the state is far more diverse than many give it credit for. Florida has thriving Pagan<\/a>, Hindu<\/a>, Haitian Vodou<\/a>, Santeria\/Lukumi<\/a>, and other non-Christian\/non-Abrahamic faith communities. What could be beneficial in a primary might come back to harm you in a general election. I doubt that Gingrich much cares about this, but future politicians should.\u00a0As I said not too long ago at The Washington Post:<\/a><\/p>\n America\u2019s religious diversity isn\u2019t simply a stock phrase to pull out when describing the virtues of our country. According to the Pew Forum, 16.1 percent of Americans claim no formal religion,<\/a> while another 2.3 percent are part of religious tradition outside the Christian-Jewish-Muslim monotheistic paradigm. Those aren\u2019t insignificant numbers, and they put the often lumped-together \u201cother\/unaffiliated\u201d category on a statistical par with evangelical and mainline Protestants. Despite this, moral debates are almost always framed along a left-right Christian axis; Rick Warren gets to interview Obama and McCain, while Hindus, Pagans, Buddhists, and practitioners of indigenous traditions rarely get to ask questions on a national stage.\u00a0 Gov. Johnson\u2019s courage in talking to religious minorities might have been driven by a modicum of desperation in getting his message out, but it should be seen as a harbinger of what campaigning to religious groups will be like in the future.\u201d<\/em><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Declaring yourself in de facto opposition to America\u2019s religious diversity and secular government should automatically disqualify you from running our executive branch. Our president is the duly elected representative of all its citizens, not just its Christian citizens. Assembling campaign faith coalitions<\/a> that speak to one very narrow idea of religion alienates instead of unifies, and when that coalition claims that electing anyone outside their boundaries will bring about the end of civilization<\/a>, it sends a dangerous signal. Americans shouldn\u2019t be worrying about \u201cPagan behaviors.\u201d Instead, they should worry about the \u201cChristian behaviors\u201d of Newt Gingrich and those like him.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich participated in a conference call to conservative Christian supporters. In a statistical tie with fellow contender Mitt Romney in the upcoming Florida primary, Gingrich is trying to win the support of as many evangelicals and religious conservatives as possible, a demographic that Romney has had a hard time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[14,419,799,1630,3640,1861,1976],"class_list":["post-9043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paganism","category-religion","tag-2012-presidential-race","tag-christianity","tag-florida","tag-newt-gingrich","tag-paganism","tag-politics","tag-republican-party"],"yoast_head":"\n