Gingrich: Religion is key
Gingrich says religion key to American identity
By JEFF AMY
Staff Reporter
Copyright 2005 Mobile Register; used with permission

Potential presidential candidate Newt Gingrich urged University of Mobile supporters Thursday night to help the country hold on to its religious underpinnings, saying it was key to American identity and to ultimate success in defeating Islamic extremists.

"A secular America would not be America," Gingrich told about 600 people gathered at the Arthur R. Outlaw Mobile Convention Center for a scholarship dinner. Mark Foley, president of the 1,900-student Baptist institution, said the event netted about $146,000 for scholarships.

Gingrich, 62, was speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999, after helping lead the Republican takeover of the body in the 1994 elections. He stepped down as speaker in the face of ethics challenges and declining support from fellow GOP House members.

Gingrich told the audience that the United States is engaged in a "long war with the irreconcilable wing of Islam." He said that a key asset in that struggle is the belief embodied in the Declaration of Independence that American citizens receive their human and political rights from the creator, and that such rights are inalienable, meaning a civil government can't take them away.

"The most important thing will be the moral fiber and depth of commitment that we bring to defending our civilization and our way of life," Gingrich said.

In recent months, Gingrich has given speeches across the country using many of the same themes. Some have been in states with early presidential primaries, including New Hampshire and South Carolina, while others have been in locations less prominent in the nominating process, including Vermont and Alabama.

Thursday, in an earlier campus appearance, and in the other speeches, Gingrich has hit similar themes. He says that the current bureaucratic nature of government is a backward failure, and that the United States faces five big challenges in coming decades. Besides the struggle with Islamic extremists and people who are trying to make the United States a secular nation, he said those include:

• Insecure borders, illegal immigration, and a need for legal guest workers.
• Retirement and health care systems in need of an overhaul to acknowledge lengthening life spans.
• A need to bolster American scientific and economic competitiveness in the face of growing Chinese and Indian affluence and power.

In the afternoon session before students, Gingrich said he would only run for president if other candidates didn't run on his ideas.

"My hope is five or six candidates are going to jump up and steal all my ideas and I won't have to run," he said.

Gingrich, for 16 years in the congressional minority, made his reputation as an intense Republican partisan. However, he said he believes presidential candidates from both parties, at least in early primary states, should have joint forums as a way to prevent each side from demonizing the other.

Gingrich was asked to compare his views on God in public life to those of Roy Moore, the Alabama gubernatorial candidate who was deposed from his post as state Supreme Court justice for his refusal to remove the Ten Commandments monument he installed in the state judicial building. Gingrich sidestepped, saying he was unfamiliar with Moore's views.

Gingrich's discussion of human rights as God-given, and his belief that a society that denies God opens up the door to government being able to take away those rights both echo key claims of Moore.

The school's merit scholarship push is meant to lure students in particular fields as the University of Mobile tries to grow larger and attract more students from outside southwest Alabama. The university had originally hoped to raise $200,000 from the dinner, but officials said Hurricane Katrina prevented them from reaching that goal.

The school declined to say how much it paid Gingrich for the speech.