I woke up this morning thinking in admiration about a same-sex couple I know who have turned their home into a hospice for one of their parents now in the last days, perhaps hours of life. They are doing much of the physical care for this parent and the emotional/psychological support for the parent’s spouse.

This, my friend, is a marriage even if the state in which they live does not allow for such a legal recognition of a love that goes far beyond the couple.

And what do you call the parents of your partner of many years? Legally, they aren’t in-laws and yet they certainly are not out-laws either. They are family.  This is a traditional family even without marriage because they have such an open house and open hearts. And this is true pro-life, I might add. They are respect human life enough to be there at the end of it.

Compare this same-sex couple who would love to have their relationship officially recognized i their own state to Newt Gingrich. This bully, a  sanctimonious Republican presidential candidate, claims to be all about traditional marriage between a man and a woman and a woman and a woman. He is in his third marriage and now has a blonde wife looking admiring at him as he spews hate.

Traditional-values Newt left his wife while she was recovering from breast cancer surgery and his second months after she learned she was developing MS.

Apparently, he took to heart that awful quote from “Love Story:” “Love means never having to say you are sorry.”

Oh he admits that he was not always a good man but now claims he is a new man, one who has gotten right with his God. Oh, goodie.

When our kids were little and went out of control, we gave them a time out in their rooms “until you are pleasant.” I remember Matt screaming down the stairs, “I’m pleasant!!!!” It was done in a way that, shall we say, was not exactly pleasant.

It also reminds of the so-called pro-life president we had before Barrack Obama was governor of a state that proudly executed prisoners – who cares if they were really guilty – without saying he was sorry.  George W. Bush was seen laughing about a prisoner’s execution. He also made fun of a woman who was executed in 1988 – the first woman executed in Texas in a century.

Apparently, Republicans can claim they are forgiven by God  - and therefore run nasty political  campaigns – but not this woman who became a Christian in prison and was repentant for what she had done.

And I will say this again. You cannot be pro-life if you don’t care about the life after it is born or what I call the already-born.

I am not a Christian, but i think that Newt would practice selective Christianity … you believe in the repentance – for yourself – until the next time you want to leave a sick wife.

Newt, you are no mensch, a Yiddish term that describes a person of honor and integrity.

This same-sex couple clearly are mensch.

Thank you for showing us what a real love – and family – look like. I would wish you the strength to get through this, but I think you already have found the strength in each other and family.