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Loading ...Corvino: Palin, pregnancy and principles
I admit it: I was fascinated by the announcement that Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.
It’s no surprise that teenagers have sex—even evangelical Christian teenagers, and especially very good looking ones, in Alaska, where there’s not much to do but hunting and fishing and…well, you know.And it’s certainly no surprise that sex makes babies.
But when a conservative politician who advocates abstinence education has a very public failure of abstinence in her own family, revealed just a few days after she’s announced as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, it’s bound to get people talking.
If nothing else, the social and political contours are interesting. Right-wingers admire Palin’s principles, but some wish she would put aside her political ambitions to tend to her family. Left-wingers reject this idea as anti-feminist, but they also reject Palin’s politics.
Let me make two things very clear.
First, Bristol Palin is not running for office; Sarah Palin is. Bristol Palin, like all expectant mothers, should be wished well—especially since she finds herself pregnant during the frenzy and scrutiny of her mother’s vice-presidential campaign. She deserves our compassion, as does her new fiancé.
Second, Sarah Palin is no hypocrite—as some uncharitable commentators have suggested—for embracing her yet-unwed pregnant daughter.
There’s no inconsistency in believing both that we should teach abstinence until marriage and that we should support those children who become pregnant anyway. There’s no hypocrisy in striving for an ideal that you and your loved ones occasionally fall short of. You don’t stop endorsing speed limits just because you (or your kids) sometimes lose track of the speedometer.
The fact is, Sarah Palin’s rejection of comprehensive sex education deserves criticism on its own merits. Her family’s behavior has nothing to do with it, aside from adding anecdotes to the statistics suggesting that “abstinence only” doesn’t achieve what its proponents hope and claim.
For example, abstinence advocates are fond of citing studies by Yale’s Hannah Brückner and Columbia’s Peter Bearman, who show that adolescents who take abstinence pledges generally delay sex about eighteen months longer than those who don’t. What the advocates don’t mention is the researchers’ finding that only 12% of these adolescents keep their pledges, and that when they do have sex, they are far less likely to use protection.
In other words, the failure rate of condoms pales by comparison to the failure rate of abstinence pledges—88%, if you believe Brückner and Bearman.
But it’s not Sarah Palin’s rejection of comprehensive sex education that’s bugging me here. What’s bugging me is the right-wing reaction, which for the most part boils down to “Nobody’s perfect, life happens, but you love and support your children and grandchildren.”
That, of course, is the proper reaction.
But it stands in sharp contrast to their usual reaction to gay kids, their rhetoric about “Love in Action” and “Love Win[ning] Out” notwithstanding.
For example, contrast the right-wing reaction to Palin’s grandchild with their reaction to Dick Cheney’s grandchild Samuel—son of his lesbian daughter Mary. At the time, Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America announced that Mary’s pregnancy “repudiates traditional values and sets an appalling example for young people at a time when father absence is the most pressing social problem facing the nation.” She was hardly alone in such denunciations.
Now here’s the same Crouse on Palin: “We are confident that she and her family will handle this unexpected situation with grace and love. We appreciate the fact that the Palins…are providing loving support to the teenager and her boyfriend.”
There are differences in the two cases to be sure. Bristol plans to marry the father, and thus will provide the baby with a “traditional” family (in one sense); Mary won’t. Bristol’s pregnancy was probably accidental, whereas Mary’s was certainly deliberate.
On the other hand, Mary’s child arrives in the home of a mature and stable couple; Bristol’s in the home of a young and hastily formed one.
But the sharpest difference in the cases is the contrast in right-wingers’ compassion. It’s the difference in empathy, a trait that’s at the core of the Golden Rule.
They tell heterosexuals: abstinence until marriage—and if you fail, we forgive you. For gays, it’s abstinence forever—and if you fail, we denounce you.
For heterosexuals, “Nobody’s perfect, life happens, but you love and support your children and grandchildren.”
For gays, not so much.
John Corvino, Ph.D. is an author, speaker, and philosophy professor at Wayne State University in Detroit.
For over fifteen years he has traveled the country speaking on homosexuality and ethics. His writing has been featured in regional and national periodicals, at the online Independent Gay Forum , and in numerous scholarly anthologies. His column “The Gay Moralist” appears Fridays on 365gay.com.
For more about John Corvino, or to see clips from his “What’s Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?” DVD, visit www.johncorvino.com.
Today’s conservatives, especially the religious right, have adopted a very convenient and flexible moral code: Whatever liberals do is wrong; whatever conservatives do is right. Conservatives are forgiven. (Call it a double standard if you wish.)
I disagree. Palin is a hypocrite when it comes to the sanctity of marriage issue. From her Christian perspective, her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend cannot have a sanctified marriage because they have fornicated. Jesus may forgive them for their sin, but from a Christian perspective, their “marriage” will be in name only, and not sanctified by any sacrament because Jesus will not be present in their vows. It’s hypocritical to hold up the “sanctity” of marriage on the one hand, and use it to justify discrimination against gays and lesbians, yet on the other hand endorse what, by Palin’s own Christian standards, would turn out to be a sham of the so-called “sanctity” of marriage on the other hand. This double-standard needs to be exposed.
To John Corvino: We all have a right to 1) our own opinion and, 2) to free speech (that right has yet to be taken away from us). Please do not chastise us for speaking up about our opinions. That said, you make a good point about Mary Cheney and Bristol Palin. I would like to add that just because some females, who may or may not consider themselves feminist, get up in arms about comments of women with children in need staying home to take care of those children, that’s not the view of all women, feminist or otherwise. I have 2 masters, one of them an MBA, and I’m nearing completion of my PhD. I’ve also worked in corporate America for 10+ years. Raising children is a hard job. And I only had two who did not have special needs. I gave up my career during the time they needed me most. I can only imagine that women who get perturbed by comments that Sarah Palin needs to think of her children first have never had the pleasure of raising children.
Very well put. She has a strong feeling that sex should be saved until after marriage; however, how would people be reacting if she rejected her daughter and did not give unconditional love? With that said, I do not agree with her on alot of things.
“Life happens” So does unwanted children, STD’s and HIV/AIDS. Knowledge is power. Arm our kids with the tools to make better choices.
It’s been my experience that those who fancy themselves closer to God than the rest of us have a bizarre sense of ethics. They seem to believe that anything they do is ordained, principled, and right. They look at their own behavior as being Christ-like (in the case of Christians) and see all sorts of positive blessings in it. (Teenage fornication leads to pregnancy? Baby is blessing from god.) On the other hand, they see nothing but sin in the same behavior in others.
When they are “caught” in something they can’t God-bless their way out of, they quickly claim the frailties of human kind, profess they have been forgiven by God, and tell us to mind our own business. (Ex: John Edwards and many others) This phenomenon isn’t specific to Republicans, but specific to Bible thumping holier-than-thou folks. Of course, there seems to be more of them in the Republican party…
Of course they are empathic to their ‘own’..but to be empathic to gays would be to validate the ‘lifestyle,’ and the hardliners refuse to do that. Because then that would be saying it was ‘ok’, and they can’t have that now, can they?
I agree with Corvino on pretty much everything except his point on Palin and teaching abstinence only programs. This is not the equivalent of affirming speed limits, but more analogous to putting your teenager behind the wheel of a car without teaching them how to drive a car so when they do decide to “take a drive,” they are able to make an informed, educated decision as to whether or not to obey the speed limit (and risk getting a ticket), or to play it safer.
If Palan was an advocate for an ABC program (Abstinence, Be faithful, use Condoms) for example which emphasizes abstinence as the best option, but provides information for those who choose to engage in sex, that would be another matter entirely. As it stands now, however, Palin must accept some of the responsibility for this car crash.
I posted this on another place.
But, I read somewhere, she stated out loud and I won’t use quotes on this because I don’t know if true, those people (gays, lesbians) don’t make a family and not to refer to those people (gays, lesbians) as family in her presence.
Palin’s hypocrisy on family values is more abusive and more troubling – dragging her children, including an infant, into the middle of a garish media circus, like Gilda Radneresque puppet props. If she showed the proper respect to her family and left them all at home, there would be no justification for discussing her unwed teenage daughter’s pregnancy. Having thrown open the door, however, her daughter could reasonably become a poster child for the efficacy of faith-based teenage contraception (Lord, I pray I’m not/she’s not pregnant!) BTW, I feel the same way about Chelsea Clinton – if you show up on the campaign trail as a prop or as a speaker, you’re fair game.
I am sure that no one wishes any illwill on Bristol Palin; however, here we are again facing HYPOCRISY from the repubs. It sounds like the usual “do as I say not as I do”. It’s ok for the pitbull with lipstick to have a daughter pregnant but not ok for GLBT to marry their partners. Wake up America! It’s only a matter of time before we are faced with the impact of our stand by and do nothing attitude.
As Alex Parrish stated in his post:
Sarah Palin has stated that keeping the baby was “Bristol’s choice.” How interesting that she felt her daughter should have a “choice,” but she is anxious to have the government take the “choice” away from others families.
Of course, this is no different from Dick Cheny attacking our families but insisting that his family is beyond comment.
Why are conservatives willing to have one standard for their own families and forcing another on everyone else’s?
An incisive internal criticism of the unprincipled and cynical prioritizing of arch right wing values, Dr. Corvino. Of course they don’t believe all sins are equal, and the only thing they’ve got going for them is an unscrupulous political strategy motivated solely by a feverish desire to retain their executive power. Thus the justification card shuffle.
So,then, would you say that this implies that moral approval doesn’t matter to them, as they don’t have the “faith” to consistently acknowledge and apply their beliefs regardless of the direction– condemnation or forgiveness?
Alas, a drawback of the internal criticism is that it enables the opposition to establish the rules of engagement in which a seeming inconsistency is drummed up relying on their beliefs–giving them the home court advantage. (The benefit, obviously, is the uncovered inconsistency). But There is no superior alternative being advanced and fleshed out, or reference frame to contrast it to in establishing the absurdity of the entire system of value being criticized here.
So…good for starting out by indicating the fact that abstinence only sex education just plain fails in achieving its purpose.
n.b. minus the extraneous “]” and with a general question for anyone who’s reading this: That is, can one format one’s posts using HTML ? I have noticed other postings that have the appropriate ’spacings’ and/or paragraph breaks ((and) given that mine did not ??) Need one simply insert a “
” ?
Well put Dr. Corvino! What I thought you would have “gone after” moreso is the fact that Mr. Cheney’s one daughter has been living a life diametrically opposites to the so-called ‘values’ of the Republican party, whereas Mrs. Palin’s one daughter has [simply?] unconsciously abrogated abstinence. Whatever the case, glad you penned that … though I do wonder how a Hume scholar (apparently) can have tendencies toward(s) a Kantian “conscience” (??)].
I found John Stewart’s thoughts provocative;
Sarah Palin has stated that keeping the baby was “Bristol’s choice.” How interesting that she felt her daughter should have a “choice,” but she is anxious to have the government take the “choice” away from others families.
Of course, this is no different from Dick Cheny attacking our families but insisting that his family is beyond comment.
Why are conservatives willing to have one standard for their own families and forcing another on everyone else’s?