Sep 03 2008
Leading Evangelicals say Palin’s Daughter Not an Issue
[Yahoo News and Christian Post]
Less than two hours after expected Republican vice presidential candidateSarah Palin and her husband announced that their unmarried 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, evangelical leaders told U.S. News that they don’t believe the revelation will harm the GOP ticket within the conservative faith community.
“I don’t think it [hurts] at all,” saidRichard Land, president of theSouthern Baptist Convention’s Ethicsand Religious Liberty Commission, who hailed Palin’s nomination.
The media’s breathless reaction is proof that “you just don’t get it,” Land said during a U.S. News lunch roundtable here that also includedJim Wallis, president and executive director of Sojourners; Randy Brinson, founder of Redeem the Vote; and Chuck Donovan, executive vice president for the Family Research Council.
Read more here.
Reaction from religious conservatives was sympathetic.
Focus on the Family founder James Dobson issued a statement commending the Palins “for not just talking about their pro-life and pro-family values, but living them out even in the midst of trying circumstances.” He added: “Being a Christian does not mean you’re perfect. Nor does it mean your children are perfect. But it does mean there is forgiveness and restoration when we confess our imperfections to the Lord.”
Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America called the pregnancy private. “It’s a matter that should stay in the family and they have to work through it together. My prayers go out to them.”
Added Combs: “We’re excited about the governor and think she’s going to do well.”
Mathew Staver, dean of Liberty University School of Law, said: “We’re all sinners.”
Read more here.
[From me]
I would agree with what these leaders are saying but I can’t help but wonder if they would feel the same way if it were Obama’s children or Biden’s? I give Obama props for saying families are off limits. That is why this shouldn’t really be an issue. I just hope when this happens to a liberal politicians family that Evangelical leaders show the same kind of compassion.
What do you think?
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11 responses so far
I too agree that the pregnancy of their teen daughter should not only be off limits but also limited to them. Even the most dedicated of Christ-following parents have children who mess up. How many have stable marriages but have watched a divorce happen with their children? If anything this should reinforce Gov. Palin’s resolve against abortion. Rather than encourage their teen daughter to hide the pregnancy or get an abortion they have made the public decision to keep it and raise it. The liberal media just don’t get it! Never have and never will! I also believe that grace should be extended to all, liberal or conservative. Christ-follower or atheist. Pain and hurt has no boundaries.
Bill(cycleguy)’s last blog post..Temptation’s Knife Blade
The Palins aren’t hypocritical at all, as some have suggested. Hypocrisy would be encouraging her to have the living human being destroyed to avoid the “punishment.”
But I think that conseratives don’t attack liberals over what their kids do, at least not in any broad way at all. I think Al Gore’s kids messed up, for example, and other than hearing a news report I’ve never heard about it again.
Neil’s last blog post..Evangelism experiences 8
I’m in 100% agreement. I was thinking this as well. I like to think that this wouldn’t matter regardless of party. I don’t care about this just like I don’t care that Clinton smoked weed when he was young. Unless these private issue will effect policy stances, then it shouldn’t be considered.
Michael’s last blog post..Hello? God?
if it were obama’s daughter or had been chelsea clinton they would have said what horrible parents they were. thats what i hate about politics. intellectual inconsistency.
davidbmc’s last blog post..Credit Where It’s Due (Give Now)
Up ’til the past few days, I have been what could be termed a pretty serious admirer of Sarah Palin.
Now, I’m not very sure about that at all. And it has nothing to do with her daughter getting pregnant.
It turns out that when she was mayor of Wasilla, Palin took a $6 million annual budget, and by the time she left to become governor she had driven the town $26 million in debt. How does that happen?! I mean, the town I’m from has more than twice the population of Wasilla, but I don’t think it’s ever been that deep in the hole (and if y’all knew the kind of politicians this place seems to chronically elect you would seriously wonder why that hasn’t happened yet). Turns out that she wasted a lot of money on things the town didn’t necessarily need, while also being extremely incompetent on urban planning.
Then there is how she ran for mayor of Wasilla in the first place. That small town had non-partisan and traditionally friendly elections. Palin campaigned on “wedge issues” like abortion. Ummmm what does abortion have to do with small-town politics? That’s like a substitute teacher giving an honors history lesson in a high school woodworking class.
And then on closer look, her record as governor of Alaska isn’t all that hot either. It’s rife with a lot of budget bungling and fiscal irresponsibility. I’ve got nothing at all against Canada, but Palin should have given the contract for the new pipeline to an American company. And the so-called “bridge to nowhere” was something she had nothing to do with at all… except that she made sure that Alaska kept all that money instead of returning it to the federal government.
There are a lot of things wrong now in my mind with the idea of this woman becoming Vice President, and her own family’s predicament has nothing at all to do with it. In the end this is about how well a person is as an administrator, an upholder of the rule of law, and as an example of civic virtue. I’m still weighing judgment on Palin and the last two but as an executive, her record now appears more than a bit shoddy.
But hey, I’m not voting for either Obama or McCain anyway, so what do I know?
Chris Knight’s last blog post..Viacom v. Knight at the Citizen Media Law Project
I don’t hardly know what to think on it.
I’d like to think the kids could get left out. But the campaign has been more than happy to drag her adult son going to Iraq into the election as an example of her patriotism and her baby son as an example of her pro-lifeness. She also wants abstinence education as a matter of public policy, but then she has pregnant teenager? If abstinence education doesn’t work with her kid, how is Joe Atheist supposed to understand that?
The other problem I have is with what appears to be a shotgun wedding in the making. I’m not sure this is a good idea for the baby. It’s a tough situation for them and I wish for the girl that it didn’t have to go on in the national spotlight.
But with so much going on in her family, why does Mrs. Palin chose her career first? Couldn’t she have said, “it’s an honor but my family comes first and I’m needed at home.” She chose to get involved in a national campaign and a super bright spotlight. Why did McCain put her in this awful position and ask her to be his VP?
They absolutely would not be so soft on Obama’s children! If the situation were reversed, I can almost guarantee we’d be hearing commentary about how support for comprehensive sex education just leads to teenagers having sex, and on and on and on and on.
I’m glad that Obama said to keep children out of it, too. But I do think the pick raises questions about McCain’s judgment in the vetting process, especially concerning some of the financial dealings we’re starting to learn about.
Texas in Africa’s last blog post..a st. paul welcome
McCain had a few reject is offer for being the VP. That is something that has given me pause.
I totally agree with kevin, davidbmsc, and TIA that if it were with the democrats then the right wing would be handling it so differerently. We see that right now with them left. They aren’t wanting choice, they want the abortion. They are questioning the parenting values. They are speaking about how a woman needs to be with her children! I’m just shaking my head at all this role reversal.
Hugh, she shouldn’t have to give up her career for her family. Bush didn’t. He let his drunken daughters goof around throughout his first term. She isn’t a single mother, so there is a parent more available. People don’t quit jobs or advancing their careers just because their children are in need. This is yet another one of those hypocritical things of this election. People wouldn’t be saying B. Clinton, Bush, McCain, or Obama needed to say “it’s an honor but my family comes first and I’m needed at home.”
I’m really hoping that this election isn’t screwed up because of too much hypocrisy.
Kevin…I know all of this political stuff is important…but, what I really want to know is how is such a bama fan like you handling all the grief you must be getting from carolina folks after the whipping our team put on their team?
Roll Tide Roll!
M. Steve Heartsill’s last blog post..Wednesday’s Question of the Day
“People don’t quit jobs or advancing their careers just because their children are in need.”
But perhaps they should! Yes, this kind of thing happens in the best of families - where there’s a will, there’s a way. In the first place, a mother’s job is much different than a father’s. Whether she has a job outside the home or not, she should always be available to her children. My husband died when I was 31 years old - I had to be both mother and father. Not an easy task! Her pregnant daughter needs her mother right now, not to be in the spotlight. Yes, conservatives would be preaching to all of us on sex education right now. Young adults need to know ALL the options. Rushing into a marriage just because of a pregnancy is never a good idea.
Instead of taking talking points from Kos and DU like others, Id rather look at the polls of the people she currently governs. 80% approval rate…with 64% of Alaskans rating her as good to excellent. Does anybody have that in the country other than her?
However, in Alaska, the 44-year old Governor and hockey mom earns good or excellent ratings from 64% of voters statewide. Just 14% say she is doing a poor job. In a state whose senior Republican Senator has been indicted for ethical violations, 84% say Palin is at least as ethical as most politicians. Most (51%) say she’s more ethical than her peers