But in a speech Newt Gingrich made last October 2011, at a secretive gathering in Naples, FL, before hundreds of assembled Florida pastors, former House Speaker Gingrich made extremely similar charges ( video link ) :

"I for one am tired of the long trend towards a secular, atheist system of thought dominating our colleges, dominating our media... ...half of what is taught in American colleges and universities is false, it is a lie and I think we ought to take it head on... I'm talking about the academic left, which dominates American history, dominates American social studies, and is determined to propagandize our children with values and ideas alien to the American tradition and alien to American civilization."

[below: video excerpts from the Champion The Vote / United In Prayer 2-hour voter registration video "One Nation Under God, featuring candidate Newt Gingrich]

While mainstream media has identified lagging Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum as the current favorite of the evangelical right, evangelical and born-again voters opted for Newt Gingrich over Santorum in the South Carolina primary, by a 2:1 margin.

Why? The reality is that Newt Gingrich has deep and longstanding alliances with some of the most influential figures on the religious right, especially new, rising leaders who are supplanting the old guard leadership, the Dobsons, LaHayes, Robertsons, and Wildmons who helped lead evangelicals into politics and who played major roles building the movement.

As Talk To Action contributor Rachel Tabachnick describes, there are at least eight major reasons why Gingrich is attractive to conservative evangelical voters.

One of those areas Gingrich has focused on with especial intensity is Christian nationalist revisionist American history.

In a January 26, 2011 Alternet story, I detail Gingrich's involvement with this pervasive genre of pseudo-history, including his appearance in a voter registration video along with leading history falsificationist David Barton, who claims in the video that key concepts in the United States Constitution were derived from the Old Testament books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Barton made that claim at the same October 20-21, 2001 pastors gathering in Orlando, Florida, at which Gingrich claimed that America's secular colleges and universities "propagandize our children with values and ideas alien to the American tradition and alien to American civilization."