While in high school, Gingrich began a relationship with his geometry teacher, Jackie Battley, who was seven years (or nine years, depending on who is talking) his senior. (According to Gingrich’s second wife, the relationship with Battley began when Gingrich was just 16.) They married in 1962, when Gingrich was 19.
In other words, in HS Gingrich was overweight - probably an outcast, bullied, made fun of, super smart, and likely all alone in many ways.
An Ohio teacher was just thrown in jail (Stacey Schuler) for the same thing that happened to 16 year old Newt Gingrich. Schuler got 4 years.
One of the mothers in the Schuler case on TV was crying because she said the woman had injured her son in ways that wouldn’t be known for years.
There is no good reason for a high school teacher to be carrying on in secret with a minor.
The Journal of Child Psychiatry notes that “there is a tendency among boy victims to recapitulate their own victimization, only this time with themselves in the role of perpetrator and someone else the victim.”
Bill Watkins and Arnon Bentovim, “The Sexual Abuse of Male Children and Adolescents: A Review of Current Research,” Journal of Child Psychiatry 33 (1992); in Byrgen Finkelman, Sexual Abuse (New York: Garland Publishing, 1995), p. 300.
In other words, he worked through his abuse subsequently, and it was not pretty. And then married and has been involved in a stable relationship for more than 11 years. He also has said he asked God for forgiveness and has worked at reconciliation. What more does a flawed sinner do?
Nothing Newt does to repent and put his past behind him will ever be enough for some of the people on FR. It is truly amazing some of the hate on display here, especially by so-called Christians and family-value conservatives. There might be more understanding of the psychological dynamics at play and tolerance for the victim at DU than here of FR, and that’s saying something...
Thank goodness Jesus Christ sees Newt as a new creature in Him. We are all sinners saved by grace... it’s sad some hearts can’t get hold of that... but that doesn’t change the Amazing Grace available to believers, that I, for one, dip into every day of my sinfilled life.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/newt-gingrich-really-married-his-high-school-math-teacher/
Great info True! I have experienced situations well enough to know that what one sees on the outside of a marriage is rarely the truth. Through the years I have known of situations that were eye opening. The women and men that bragged the most about their wonderful relationships, we’re “the last to know.”. I can tell you this, all politicians always have fabulous marriages”..............................and there is one relationship we’re watching that has some big holes in it, something just isn’t normal.
That's what gets me about these politic-Evangelicals who are supporting Santorum so heavily - they can see and condemn someone's sin, but only when it's in a candidate they don't support.