Gingrich Using Gay Rights to Capture Religious Right

Former House speaker and possible presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich is courting evangelical voters by quietly backing initiatives like the removal of three Iowa supreme court judges who ruled in favor of marriage equality in the state.

According to the Los Angles Times, Gingrich helped secure $200,000 for the campaign that successfully removed justices David Baker and Michael Streit and Chief Justice Marsha Ternus.

Jim Garlow, the pastor of Skyline Church in San Diego, was a key leader in getting Proposition 8 passed. He said that Gingrich is the "strongest possible candidate" for the 2012 Republican nomination.

Gingrich, who is twice-divorced, also stacked the board of his religion-based nonprofit organization with evangelical leaders like Vivian Berryhill, the president and founder of the National Coalition of Pastors' Spouses. She told the Times that Gingrich helped her organization raise money for their projects on diabetes and teen sexual abstinence.