Newt Gingrich defends marriage!

(Getty Images) The tone is measured, reasoned, professorial, as befits someone who taught college history for years. "Throughout the centuries, the people have defeated the threat of judicial tyranny . . ." But! Just this year, "four lawyers, for that is all judges are, overruled the will of 4 million Californians" who voted in 2000 to exclude gays from marriage. Who is this donnish gatekeeper in the Yes on 8 YouTube video? It's Newt Gingrich! Who's been married three times!

We get the link from none other than Newt's fellow Republicans over at RepublicansAgainst8.com, who say the Nov. 4 bid to end California same-sex marriage is "bad for business," gives "big government unprecedented control over the lives of private citizens" and "sets a dangerous social precedent in California." Signatories include Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (who adds that he hopes "everyone is going to come here and get married"), San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders (remember his tearful defense of equality for his lesbian daughter?), UC Regent Ward Connerly and a quorum of the Laguna Beach City Council. Take that, Newt!

Polls show Prop. 8 losing, in part because, like Mayor Sanders, voters equate it with denial of rights to real people close to them. Newt Gingrich must know this, because in his four-minute YouTube lecture, he mentions the word "marriage" only twice -- and "gay" and "love" not at all.

Watch the clip below.