Friend of the Blend, Joe Murray, a former staff attorney for the American Family Association, has written a sizzling op-ed in the Des Moines Register addressing the Wildmon family hate machine’s participation in the 2012 GOP Clown Car endorsement game.

The fundie organization, which focuses “protecting marriage,” has endorsed serial adulterer Newt Gingrich, and as Joe says, “strips the organization of its lingering legitimacy and exposes the bigotry, dipped in hypocrisy, it is trying to sell Iowans.”

Notably, in the AFA’s home base of Mississippi, divorce is quite prevalent, and…

Let’s be honest, marriage is under assault today, but it is being attacked by the overwhelming acceptance, and ease, of divorce. In Mississippi, AFA’s home state, a couple only needs to sign papers and wait 60 days and their marriage — the bond Jesus said “let no man separate” — is over.

You’d think that the AFA would be worried about this “scourge” of divorce occurring at home, but its tentacles reach all over the country in an attempt to stop LGBTs from obtaining equal rights under the law. But the spectacle of tossing the sanctity of marriage under the bus in order to bed down with Gingrich is an epic example of the rank hypocrisy of the American Family Association, designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2010.

Where is the moral outrage over no-fault divorce? Why isn’t AFA asking Gingrich to sign a pledge to repeal laws that make divorce easier? Why aren’t any of the self-proclaimed champions of morality protecting marriage from the one thing that can kill it?

The answer: They are too busy endorsing a candidate who left two wives while they were ill to marry a mistress on each occasion. Can it honestly be said that AFA gives a rip about marriage when they have endorsed an individual who has made a mockery of the institution?

The fact is simple — marriage equals money. Groups like AFA need gay people more than they need to “protect marriage.” If AFA wanted to protect marriage, it would be supporting laws to make divorce harder, not candidates who serve as its poster child.

Instead, just like Foxy Loxy, these Christian groups use gays to propagate a sky-is-falling mentality to raise fear and cash. Marriage, thus, is the side car to the real cash cow — the exploitation of prejudice against gays.

Moreover, AFA’s attraction to Gingrich stems from his willingness to rewrite the Constitution and remove the separation of powers. President Gingrich would call any judge who rules contrary to his shifting standards to Capitol Hill. Translation — any judge who dares to find civil rights for gay folks would be placed on a trial of his or her own.

But none of that matters to groups like the AFA and Bob Vander Platts, president and CEO of The Family Leader. The latter was accused of a pay-for-endorsement deal with Rick Santorum in Iowa. It’s part of the political game, it’s crystal clear that it’s not about God, marriage or anything so pious.