Newt Gingrich seemed to blame same-sex marriage for the country’s economic woes, during an interview with Catholic Radio of San Diego last week. Responding to a question about the connection between the “secular” attack on “the family” and economic stagnation, Gingrich argued that “freedom of faith” – which he argued is being undermined by the push for marriage equality — is directly related to “free enterprise”:

HOST: We’re becoming increasingly secular, the family is under attack and economically we’re experiencing woes like we’ve never known in our history it seems. So what is the connection here?…

GINGRICH: You have to recognize that free enterprise is based on free people and … free people are based on faith. The very basis of our belief and freedom is that we believe we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. The very source of our strength is that we believe these are truths – not theories, not ideologies, not gimmicks, not political consultants, powerpoints – truths, and so there’s a core absolute overlap between free enterprise, freedom and freedom of faith. And if you don’t have freedom of faith in the end you’re not going to have free enterprise because there’s no moral force that defends and protects you.”

Listen:

Del. Bob Marshall (R-VA)

Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall has been publicly condemned by his colleagues for his virulently anti-gay remarks, but he is undeterred. In fact, he wants other states to have to deal with his hateful rhetoric as well. In a letter in yesterday’s Baltimore Sun, Marshall attacked Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley for supporting marriage equality and pulled no punches in attacking homosexuality, all in the name of Catholicism:

As a Catholic legislator, I disagree with Governor O’Malley. Sexual orientation is not limited to same- or complementary-sex attractions but includes attractions to children, prostitutes, multiple wives (polygamy) dead persons (necrophilia), animals, inanimate objects, and others that could not be printed in the Baltimore Sun out of deference to readers.

Of course, Marshall’s definition of sexual orientation is Marshall’s alone. Sexual orientation refers to what sex (or sexes) one is oriented toward — hence, sexual orientation. Most of the -philias in his list (children, corpses, animals, and the unprintable “Voldemorts”) are all paraphilias or psychiatric disorders, and homosexuality has not been classified as either since 1973. If Marshall wants to make a case against different sexual practices like prostitution and polygamy, he’ll have to give up his “6,000 years of Western religious and moral teachings.” Polygamy (which he highlights in his diatribe), in particular, features prominently throughout the religious teachings he cites. Not that it matters — none of this has anything to do with sexual orientation or marriage equality.

Marshall, unsurprisingly, offers no substantiation for any of his fear-mongering, including his claim that “the family…will be negatively impacted.” (He must, like Michele Bachmann, believe same-sex families aren’t already “families.”) His case is built around his desire to maintain the stigmatization and demonization of same-sex couples as a societal norm. He may not like it, but the Catholic Church does not have any official authority over Maryland’s state government. And fortunately, neither does Marshall.

The New York Times’ James Dao reports that Michele Bachmann could easily reinstate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell if she were elected president and made good on her promise to bring back the soon-to-be repealed policy:

Turns out that it wouldn’t be hard to do, legal experts say.

That’s because the law repealing the ban that President Obama signed last December did not expressly order the Pentagon to allow openly gay or lesbian troops in the armed forces. Congress merely laid out a process under which the ban could be lifted. Under that process, the president, secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had to certify that repeal would not undermine recruiting, retention, morale and other indicators of what is commonly called military readiness.

Once that certification was made and sent to Congress, the secretary of defense then had to prepare and issue new regulations allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly. That is where the process is now: the regulations are being written and the ban will be lifted on Sept. 20.

But because Congress did not require the military to allow open service, a new president could order his or her new secretary of defense to issue new regulations that effectively reinstate the ban, said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which advocates for gay and lesbian troops.

But I would argue that there is some difference between having the authority to keep gay people out of the military and actually having the political capital to do so — particularly for a female president without military experience. To bring back the ban on open service, Bachmann would have to go head to head with the four service chiefs — all of whom authorized the repeal — and somehow convince the armed forces that it’s even operationally possible to push service members back into the closet. Would soldiers have to be trained to forget that some of their colleagues are gay? I mean, how would this even work? And even if she does manage to repeal the repeal, the order would be immediately challenged in court, with proponents relying on the Pentagon’s own study showing that servicemembers don’t mind serving alongside gay soldiers and the real world experience in which the services experienced few problems after the ban was lifted.

And so at the end of the day — regardless of what Bachmann is now saying on the campaign trail — once that toothpaste is out of the tube, Bachmann or any other Republican isn’t going to be able to shove it back in.