Newt Gingrich Blasts Media for Ignoring Anti-Christian Bigotry; ABC's GOP Debate Questions 6 to 1 Liberal, 25% on Contraception, Gay Rights

Newsbusters.org:

ABC's GOP presidential debate on Saturday overflowed with liberal questions. Of the 48 queries by George Stephanopoulos, Diane Sawyer and others, 20 came from the left, three were from the right and 25 were neutral or horse race questions. A whopping 25 percent (12 questions) revolved around contraception-related subjects or gay rights.


Although birth control isn't exactly a pressing 2012 issue (especially in a tough economy), George Stephanopoulos wasted seven questions on contraception. The former Democratic operative began by noting Rick Santorum's belief that there is no constitutional "right to privacy." He added, "And following from that, he believes that states have the right to ban contraception." The co-moderator repeated, "Governor Romney, do you believe that states have the right to ban contraception? Or is that trumped by a constitutional right to privacy?"


When the ABC journalists weren't grilling the Republicans on birth control, the subject was gay marriage and homosexual issues in general (five questions). Josh McElveen, of New Hampshire's WMUR spun the candidates as unfeeling for not supporting the rights of gays to adopt.


To Santorum, he chided, "Your position on same-sex adoption, obviously, you are in favor of traditional families, but are you going to tell someone they belong in -- as a ward of the state or in foster care, rather than have two parents who want them?"


Co-moderator Sawyer read a question e-mailed from "Phil in Virginia." She sympathetically quoted, "We simply want to have the right to...form loving, committed, long-term relationships." Sawyer added, "In human terms, what would you say to them?"


Only three questions came from the right. One of those was when McElveen hit Ron Paul for not being in sync with the party's stance of a strong national defense: "You have said that you wouldn’t have authorized the raid to get Osama bin Laden. You think that a nuclear Iran is really none of our business. How do you reconcile that, when part of your job as president would be" to defend America?


The bias grew so bad that Newt Gingrich, again, spoke out, slamming the moderators. In relation to the focus on gay rights, he ripped:


NEWT GINGRICH: I just want to raise a point about the news media bias. You don’t hear the opposite question asked. Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won’t accept gay couples, which is exactly what the state has done? Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won’t give in to secular bigotry? Should the Catholic Church find itself discriminated against by the Obama administration on key delivery of services because of the bias and the bigotry of the administration? The bigotry question goes both ways. And there’s a lot more anti-Christian bigotry today than there is concerning the other side. And none of it gets covered by the news media.


Shouldn't the point of a Republican debate be to inform Republican voters who is the authentic conservative? All Stephanopoulos and Sawyer did was badger the candidates with liberal talking points.