Is Newt Gingrich the New Religious Right?

Thomas B. Edsall at the New York Times speculates about the future of the religious right in light of its current public representatives, citing an Clinton-era letter in which  Paul Weyrich despaired over whether or not there really was a “moral majority”:

“I no longer believe that there is a moral majority. I do not believe that a majority of Americans actually shares our values . . . Cultural Marxism is succeeding in its war against our culture. The questions becomes, if we are unable to the escape the cultural disintegration that is gripping society, then what hope can we have?”

What would Weyrich have to say, Edsall asks, now that Newt Gingrich, “who was himself having an adulterous affair during the Clinton impeachment proceedings, won the 2012 South Carolina Republican primary with a plurality of voters who described themselves as evangelical or born-again Christians?”

Edsall goes on to claim that Gingrich is the first conservative presidential candidate to run on a platform of traditional values from which he is exempting issues relating to personal sexual behavior. But Gingrich wouldn’t have reacted so furiously to John King’s question about his “open marriage” if he really was indifferent to personal sexual ethics. Sensitivity is its own kind of concern.