Gingrich: "[T]here is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us"

Discussing actions by individual protesters of Proposition 8, Newt Gingrich stated: “I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion.”

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On the November 14 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, in reference to actions by individual protesters of Proposition 8, the recently passed California ballot initiative amending the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich stated: “I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion.” Gingrich also stated: "[W]hen the radicals lost the vote in California, they are determined to impose their will on this country no matter what the popular opinion, no matter what the law of the land."

As Media Matters for America noted, after a caller said on the November 10 broadcast of The Savage Nation that "[h]omosexuals and homosexual marriage is a choice," host Michael Savage declared: "[I]t's a lifestyle or a death-style choice, depending upon how you look at it." Media Matters recently compiled numerous other examples of conservative talk radio hosts issuing smears pertaining to sexual orientation or targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans.

From the November 14 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

O'REILLY: OK, now, the culture war. I know you've been flying around the country, and you're doing stuff. In the last three or four days, this is really nasty stuff. I mean, you know, hyper -- we're gonna show you some of the video. A woman getting a cross smashed out of her hand. We had a church in Michigan invaded by gay activists. We're gonna show you the video on Monday of that -- we have exclusively. We had a guy in Sacramento fired from his job. We had boycotts called on restaurants.

I mean, it is getting out of control, very few days after the election. How do you assess that?

GINGRICH: Look, I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact. And, frank -- for that matter, if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they're the opposite, of what you're taught in Sunday school.

O'REILLY: Are you surprised at the speed of it? You figure that there'd be --

GINGRICH: Oh, I --

O'REILLY: -- a two-week breathing, you know -- wham.

GINGRICH: No. I think -- I think when the left -- when the radicals lost the vote in California, they are determined to impose their will on this country no matter what the popular opinion, no matter what the law of the land. You've watched them, for example, in Massachusetts, basically drive the Catholic Church out of running adoption services, drive Catholic hospitals out of offering any services, because they impose secular rules that are fundamentally --

O'REILLY: Yeah, and that's -- right --

GINGRICH: -- sinful from the standpoint, you know.

O'REILLY: Of the church --

GINGRICH: And so I think, we need -- look, we need a debate. [Gingrich's wife] Calista [Gingrich] and I just did a YouTube video on the Capitol Visitors Center where there's also an effort to take “In God We Trust” out of the Capitol Visitors Center.

O'REILLY: OK, we'll talk about that when we come back.

GINGRICH: That's how bad it is.

O'REILLY: All right, so when we come back, I want to talk about the economy, which is frightening everybody. I want to talk about the illegal alien amnesty, and we'll talk about the “In God We Trust,” all right. We'll have more with the speaker in a moment.