FU Friday: Newt Gingrich

Today’s FU Friday comes on a Thursday—deal with it.

Former House Speaker and Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has been saying some awful and just plain strange things about non-Christians lately. Here is John Stewart’s take:

In case you’re outside the U.S. and can’t watch the video, here’s what Newt said:

I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9.  I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.

A week or so before expressing his worries about atheist jihadists, Newt was already barking at the same tree. He conducted an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network to speak about his past indiscretions, the coming presidential race and the threat to “Judeo-Christian society.”

I’m pretty sure you can all see that video. If not, let me know.

I’m not sure why he seems hell bent on associating atheists with Islam. I’m pretty sure the two groups have as much contempt for each other as they do for Christianity. Yet he wants to include Jews in his club with the meaningless term, “Judeo-Christian.”

Let’s be honest here, Newt. If your contention is that America has a “Judeo-Christian civilization” because it was founded that way, you’d be wrong, but you’d also have to drop the “Judeo”; I don’t think there were a whole lot of Jewish founders and, more importantly, our founding documents don’t say anything about Judaism (or Christianity for that matter).

If your contention is that Jews and Christians make up a majority of Americans, fine, but you’re forgetting about the non-religious who make up more than 10% of the population compared with the minuscule 1.7% Jewish, according to Pew Forum statistics.

Or perhaps you include Jews because they have similar values—they share one of your holy books and worship the same god. Well guess what, Newt—those Muslims you hate so much share with you two books and a god!

Bottom line is you can say, “Deio-Christian,” “Atheo-Christian,” or my personal favorite, “Judeo-Christo-Islamic,” and still make some sort of sense, but not, “Judeo-Christian.”