I had thought the terrifying onslaught of Gustav and the efforts by the GOP to dodge the Katrina bullet--or turn it to McCain's benefit--would be the story of the day, but the bombshell news that Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter Bristol is five months pregnant is worth addressing given the stakes, and the nexus of religion and politics. A
nd, well, because it's irresistible. (WaPocoverage here and NYTimes here. And a reader sends this photo from a McCain daughter's blog, apparently of Bristol, holding baby Trig, from a People magazine shoot, as evidence that she was obviously pregnant. I'm not so sure.)
The Palin family issued a statement saying the daughter and daddy-to-be, Levi, would marry:
"Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows that she has our unconditional love and support...Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media, respect our daughter and Levi's privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates."
Naturally this will introduce some German terms--mainly schadenfreude, I think--into the political lexicon. But it is also offering "Palinistas" and McCainiacs a chance to tout Palin as even more pro-life than ever. I haven't surfed too far, but I was struck by the title of Rod Dreher's "Crunchy Con" post: "Palin's daughter gets pregnant, chooses life." Rod writes:
Will this hurt her politically? I'm thinking not. Nor should it. Unplanned teen pregnancy is not unheard of in this country. Any family could face this crisis, even conservative Christian families. I've known some myself. The question is: how do you deal with it? Bristol Palin is not going to abort her unborn child. She's going to keep the baby and marry the father. Good for her. It shouldn't have happened, but it did happen, and now she's going to do the right thing -- the hard thing. Again: good. Mother and child -- and father -- need support.
My initial reaction is that Dreher is right--Palin supporters will rally around her, and will forcefully use any efforts to view this development as a chink in the Palin's all-American, super-Christian reputation against the critics. And that might work. As Rod says, and as others have noted, this sort of thing happens to families like the Palins all the time. Sarah Palin and her daughter will be raising kids who will grow up together.
The news is so delicate for the Dems that Obama has weighed in saying:
"Back off these kinds of stories...I have said before and I will repeat again: People's families are off limits. And people's children are especially off limits. This shouldn't be part of politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor and or her potential perfromance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18 and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn't be a topic of our politics."
Yet so nervous is the Christian right that they're actually giving Obama kudos--Rod calls him "classy," even though Obama's demonstrated class throughout the campaign, as opposed to the other camp. Then again, Obama is also in a political bind, as the GOP was saying his camp started the rumors that led to the revelation. He denied it, and wanted to put distance there, if possible.
I am not running for office, thank heaven, so at the risk of incurring such wrath (but what the heck), I think this story raises raises many other truly serious questions, beyond the obvious hole in the Palins' holier-than-thou presentation. For one, the McCain camp apparently knew of Bristol's pregnancy before the pick was made. So why wasn't this made public right off the bat? Why all the hype about how wonderful the family is--when you know that may blow up in your face? According to campaign officials, the announcement was made after wild rumors began circulating on liberal blogs (not here!) that intended to counter rumors by liberal bloggers that Gov. Palin only claimed to have given birth last April, but the child (Trig, who has Down syndrome) was really Bristol's. So how long were they going to keep this secret? For another, say, two months--until Nov. 5?
The Palins are of course also fortunate to have the means to support their pregant teenage daughter--what will she do as vice-president and potential president do ensure other young single moms have the same option? And how will she address her party's ad nauseam rhetoric about the decline in morals and family values when the very things they blast in the rest of society are in fact happening at home?
But again, I doubt that will have traction. Indeed, it may not even be true in a few hours, in light of the news here that in the hours before her selection was announced a McCain campaign volunteer was surreptiously massaging Palin's Wikipedia entry with more than 30 edits to make her look good. (Lecture for the first day of class this semester writes itself...)
More perilous for Palin (the candidate, not the daughter), I think, are some of the items that blogmeisters at dotCommonweal brought to light, namely, that she actually backed that infamous pork barrel "Bridge to Nowhere" when she ran for governor in 2006, even though she said at her introduction by McCain that she was against it--and McCain cited that as a reason for picking her, so she could clean up Washington. As the USA Today story says:
Asked why she supported the bridge, Palin's communications director Bill McAlister said, "It was never at the top of her priority list, and in fact the project isn't necessarily dead ... there's still the potential for improved ferry service or even a bridge of a less costly design." She changed her mind, he said, when "she saw that Alaska was being perceived as taking from the country and not giving, and that impression bothered her and she wants to change it...I think that Sarah Palin is someone who has the courage to reevaluate situations as they developed."
She is good at reevaluation. A dotCommonwealer also dug up her response to a 2006 Eagle Forum election questionnaire:
QUESTION: Are you offended by the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?
PALIN: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I'll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.
Of course, as even Wikipedia knows, the pledge wasn't written until 1892, and the phrase "Under God" wasn't added until the 1950s--at the behest of the Knights of Columbus, natch.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
Debbie:
You do like the broad sweeping generalization, don't you? But regarding sex education, let me be clear about this, since I grew up in NJ - a "liberal" state - and back in the 80's when I was in high school we were taught sex education in the public school.
First, abstinence IS taught as part of sex education. The teachers at our schools were not handing around condoms saying, "Go out and have fun - there aren't any REAL consequences!" No no no no no. They were telling us to avoid sex before marriage at all costs, and they used real information as evidence for this argument, such as what happens to your bank account or your college plans when you have to take care of a baby, or what happens when you get Herpes - which NEVER GOES AWAY! Yes, there were some people in our school who had sex anyway - but many of us took to heart these lessons we received at school and we allowed our reason to play a part in the equation. So sex education teaches kids first and foremost to avoid sex. But if students aren't going to pay heed to this advice, then you teach them about the different kinds of birth control, the effectiveness of each, STDs (including the very real possibility of contracting AIDS), and you teach them about pregnancy. This equips them with real knowledge so that they have the best possible chance to make good choices when they are faced with them - it is never a program of pushing immorality or promiscuity on teens. Never.
I have mentioned this before on these boards, but let me tell it again as a counter example. As an adult we moved to Texas, and I have an in-law who grew up in a public school system with no sex ed, and in a religious household that pushed the stigma of teen sex and especially teen pregnancy. When this girl became active and got pregnant, even though she was from an extremely conservative family who were about the most religious people imaginable, she felt her only way "out" was to have an abortion, which she reluctantly did. Why? Because there was no way to face her family, her church, and her community. In her situation, it was conservative "values" that actually caused her to seek abortion - and I know that if she would have been taught about birth control she would never have had to make such a terrible decision.
My point here is not just that conservative family values have a "dark side," but also that young people need to be educated about these matters. Give them all the tools they need to be able to make better choices, and don't deprive them of the knowledge that can save their lives.
DEAR BRISTOL,
JUST AS THE GENTLE AND SERENE WINDS OF THE FALL BREEZE HERE IN BRISTOL,CT BEGIN TO TURN THE LEAVES TO MAGNIFICANT COLORS.
I AM SURE THAT YOU WILL BE A TERRIFIC MOTHER AND THAT THIS IS A PRIVATE MATTER.
I AM VOTING FOR JOHN MCCAIN AND YOUR WONDERFUL MOTHER, GOV. PALIN!
GOD'S BLESSINGS TO YOU
CAROLYN
I find it very informative how some of my fellow Christians define "family values". The question about Palin's famiy values does not, for me, center around her advocating abstinance only or the fact that such advocacy failed with her daughter. (It happens to the best of us, I totally undertand that and condemn neither daughter nor mother for it.)
My "family values" problem with Sarah Palin is her evident lack of commitment to choices she has previously made. She chose to have five children (abstinance also works in marriage if you are against using birth control). For someone who truly has family values, that choice implies commiting to take on a great deal of **personal** responsibility. The agreement to be a mother does not come with an opt out clause that says it's ok to turn the responsibility over to others because you have political ambitions.
Palin has a young baby, other young children, and a child who's about to become a mother herself (believe me, she's going to need her mother when that happens). Yet, Sarah Palin chooses to put "Country First", even at this time of her children's lives. One can argue the feminist perspective that "I am woman. Hear me roar" - women can do both - have a career and children. Yes, they can, but they can't be said to have very solid family values if they do that when they have the chance to be a full time mom to their own small children. She gets no kudos or tag of "hero" from me for her choice to put family second.
The Vice Presidency of the U.S. is no ordinary 9-5 job. On so many levels, I find Sarah Palin lacking the qualifications needed for it. Where family values is concerned, I question both her judgement and McCains for even putting her into consideration. He shouldn't have asked and she should have said no, not at this time.
Then again, maybe I shouldn't be surprised she said yes. Any woman who is leaking amniotic fluid who 1. only speaks to her doctor by phone and doesn't seek hands on medical help, 2. then spends many hours traveling past well equipped hospitals and 3. worse yet, isn't even full term .... has to be regarded as reckless as best and hoping to kill her unborn baby at worst. She does not get my nod as a role model for mothers for it.
So, no, we don't have to condemn young Bristol or her mother for Bristol's pregnancy. We shouldn't condemn them. But, we can surely question Sarah Palin's choices as a woman and as a mother (especially, since she was chosen because she's a woman). This all goes directly to character, as far as I'm concerned. I find hers lacking.
It is so ironic and hypocritical how family values was once a conservative agenda and as soon as it happens to one of those conservative hypocrites, its okay to make a mistake because they plan on marrying anyway, how convenient. You people need some help on how you think and how you can easily get manipulated.
Is teen pregnancy now just a sign of An American Family? What is going on here?"
Black and Hispanic parents, raising children in the midst of social chaos, striving to instill values better than those of their hopelessly disordered neighborhoods, will now contend with yet one more notoriously public pregnant child celebrity. One more occasion to explain why their daughters should fight off the temptation to replicate yet another celebrity's imprudence.
Here are parents of every race, class and background valiantly trying to offset an intrusive media's corrosive impact in the lives of their children, as they cope with a public school system that reinforces the media's socially destructive messages. As though in partnership with these negative forces, along come the pro-lifers, who validate youthful sexually promiscuous behavior, by celebrating its inevitable outcome and consequences. They have not only helped to normalize illegitimate childbirth, but have raised it to the status of saintliness. Instead of a Scarlet Letter, Hester gets a heads up and encouragement to repeat her folly.
And now we're confronted with a major politician expressing no regrets for the mistake made by her underage daughter, but actually celebrating it as a "beautiful" event. Why should not Palin's two younger daughters crave the attention and spotlight now being lavished on the older one, and look forward to repeating her example – along with the many girls around the country who are awed by the spectacle of an unwed teenager being celebrated at a prominent political convention?
Was it right to have this unmarried, pregnant 17-year-old girl at the Republican convention holding hands with her boyfriend on national and global television, therefore normalizing an out-of-wedlock sexual relationship and pregnancy at the highest level of our national life?
Republicans can no longer express negative judgment about out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Since when, is it good news that a 17-year-old high school student will be caring for her new born, while still in school?
And why are the circumstances presented to the public by Palin considered acceptable? Because Bristol's baby is not being aborted. The non-abortion turns the unmarried pregnancy and the upcoming teen-age marriage into a blessed event! ... This is the way these “Christian” conservatives are responding – because of the moral reductionism that effectively eliminates all moral evils except for the evil of abortion....
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.