by Mike Andrew - SGN Staff Writer

Newt Gingrich endorsed President Obama - sort of - at a campaign event in Oskaloosa, Iowa, on December 20.

'I asked him if he's elected, how does he plan to engage Gay Americans. How are we to support him? And he told me to support Obama,' said Scott Arnold, who encountered Gingrich at the Smokey Row coffee house where the former House speaker was shaking hands.

Arnold, an adjunct professor of writing at William Penn University, admits to being a Democrat, but told Des Moines Register reporters that he still has an open mind about the 2012 election.

After reading Gingrich's statements about LGBT Americans, Arnold said, he wanted to ask the candidate how he would be able to represent them.

Gingrich's advice to support Obama did not impress Arnold.

'When you ask somebody a question and you expect them to support all Americans and have everyone's general interest,' Arnold said. 'It's a little bit frustrating and disheartening when you're told to support the other side. That he doesn't need your support.

'It doesn't inspire hope at all. And if that's what he's trying to do and that's what he's trying to say, that this is a collective effort if he's elected president, yet he tells me to support the other side?'

Although Gingrich's half-sister, Candace Gingrich-Jones, is a Lesbian who has married her partner Rebecca, the candidate said in Iowa that same-sex marriage 'is a temporary aberration that will dissipate.'

In a letter to The Family Leader this month, Gingrich said he supported a federal constitutional amendment that would deny marriage rights to same-sex couples.

Gingrich-Jones is following her brother's advice and working on Obama's reelection campaign.

She told Gay blogger Michelangelo Signorile that she has no idea if her brother really believes what he says about LGBT people, or if he has adopted his position because he thinks it will help him win the Republican nomination.

'For someone who has publicly and financially opposed marriage equality, he has not so far treated us any differently than a married couple,' she said.

'That's the question that I ask myself, and many have asked me, 'Does he believe the things he says or is he saying them as part of his political stands?' Really, the bottom line is: I don't like either of the possibilities there, and I don't know what the actual answer is.'

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