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 more about John Corvino, or to see clips from his “What’s Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?” DVD, visit www.johncorvino.com.

This year offers a similar disparity between the parties. The Democrats proved at their Denver convention to be GLBT supportive while the GOP in Minneapolis will most likely rail against equality for gays in their effort to bring home their socially conservative base.

It was made clear by the major Democratic stars –Ted Kennedy, Hillary and Bill Clinton and Barak Obama — that we, the GLBT community, are included in their vision for America. In Minneapolis, I suspect the few references to the existence of GLBT people will be as a threat to the family, with some speakers explicitly calling for a federal Constitutional Amendment to prohibit equal marriage rights. It is unfathomable that a gay person – except the most delusional – would be comfortable voting for such a party, no less trolling and tripping over conservatives in the convention hall.

McCain’s first nod to the conservatives came when he plucked a tyro from the tundra to serve as his gunning mate, er, running mate. Alaska’s moose stew-loving governor, Sarah Palin, energized social conservatives who quickly aborted their ostensible concerns about national security for their narrow desire to secure the termination of Roe v. Wade. They were so thrilled to have Palin on the ticket, that the Family Research Council excused her teenage daughter, Bristol, for her out of wedlock pregnancy. Imagine the uproar from these Moral Majority types if this had instead been Chelsea Clinton!

Like a comedy sketch, John McCain’s wife, Cindy, said on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, that the inexperienced Palin was qualified to handle a resurgent Russia because, “Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia.” Isn’t that a bit like saying I’m an expert on Cuba because I grew up in Miami?

If Palin’s resume were any thinner, it could be a Vogue runway model. Prior to her two-year stint as Alaska’s governor, Palin was the mayor of Wasilla, an Anchorage suburb with 7,000 residents – which is probably less than the number of people who live on my block in Brooklyn.

Considering McCain is 72 and has had past health issues, Palin was a reckless and potentially ruinous choice.  McCain’s main appeal was his experience, but elevating Palin makes it infinitely more difficult for McCain to credibly make this argument.

Let’s be honest, this is tokenism and selecting Palin as a substitute for Clinton is reminiscent of President George H.W. Bush nominating Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court replacement for the legendary Thurgood Marshall.

This pander pick will win over few Clinton supporters following her eloquent, unifying speech in Denver. It is ludicrous to think that these educated women will be enthusiastic about Palin, who is anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-environment and who even supported arch conservative Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaign. Indeed, Buchanan told Chris Matthews on Hardball that Palin was a “brigader for me in 1996.”

Unfortunately, I still get a lot of e-mail from misinformed gay people who think that John McCain and Barack Obama have the same record on GLBT issues simply because they both oppose allowing gay people to marry. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. Obama is light years ahead on our issues and a vote for McCain is a tragic mistake that will usher in four more years of discrimination and humiliation. I suggest those in doubt visit a new website, “LGBT For Obama,” that highlights the superiority of the democratic nominee’s record.

In November, we can wake up to a new day where job discrimination is outlawed, openly gay soldiers are able to serve our nation with the dignity they deserve, GLBT people are finally included in hate crime laws, our families are offered a measure of protection and America will have a moderate Supreme Court for years to come.

Or, we can rise to a dark November morning that ushers in four more ugly years of persecution, right wing demagogues on the president’s speed dial, invisibility for our families, Arabic translators kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation and a retrograde and a reactionary Supreme Court that sets our movement back decades.

The GLBT community needs to unify and rally around the Obama campaign as we did for Clinton in 1992, or we will live in a regime that rules like its 1892. The choice for the future is clear and stark. We must mobilize in swing states and win or the GOP will be taking gratuitous swings at our families for the next four years.

Permission to eat ice-cream again.

You see, like most gay men who attend, I prepare for Splash by increasing my gym time and decreasing my carb intake to Olympic-prep levels.

At restaurants, when waiters try to deliver a bread basket, I scream as if I’ve seen a roach. I order salads and then assiduously pick out the croutons. Ask me if I’d like to see a dessert menu, and I’ll look at you as if you’d suggested bringing plutonium to the table.

I know this is silly for all kinds of reasons. Even when I was single and “on the prowl,” I was never particularly attracted to gym bunnies. Neither did I notice a positive correlation between being in top shape and having great sex. On the contrary: carb deprivation makes me cranky, and cranky isn’t sexy.

The fact is, the hottest experiences I’ve ever had have been with ordinary guys while I was in ordinary shape (not counting my husband: an extraordinary guy in every sense of the term). And I’m no longer on the prowl. So why do I care about an extra quarter-inch on my waistline?

Let’s be honest: it’s not about health. One can be perfectly healthy without having washboard abs. Besides, I haven’t had washboard abs since I was six years old—which is about the last time I looked good in a speedo—and I’m not going to achieve them now without liposuction or starving myself to the point where I look gaunt. It’s just not in the cards genetically.

So is it all about appearance? Maybe, but three weeks of being a food nazi won’t measurably improve how I look. Besides, at 5’8” and 150 pounds, with a 31-inch waist, I look pretty good for my age.

Speaking of age: I’m thankful that at nearly 40 I’m blessed with a youthful countenance. Readers sometimes inquire about the author photo that accompanies my column. It’s recent, I swear. What’s my secret? Intravenous Botox.

No, seriously: there’s no secret. Like my stubborn love-handles, my boyish looks are mostly thanks to genetics. Beyond that, I don’t smoke, I eat well, I get decent rest, and I don’t dwell on things that depress me (with the possible exception of my love handles).

I also exercise moderately. By “moderately,” I mean I lift weights a few times a week and occasionally take a brisk walk (but not so brisk that I can’t stop when a neighbor offers me a cocktail). You won’t see me running unless I’m being chased.

I’m grateful for living in a city (Detroit) where gay men don’t feel pressure to be model-pretty. I once turned down a job in Los Angeles partly because I didn’t like the body-image pressure there. In Detroit gay men are actually allowed to eat cookies on occasion. (Mmmmmm…cookies.) Except in the three weeks prior to vacation, apparently.

See you all at Splash. I’ll be the cranky one eagerly awaiting his next ice cream.

John Corvino 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.

This conclusion is true if we are still defining “presidential” as a cocksure windbag who bonds with the common people by pandering to the lowest common denominator.

On cue, the media judged the candidates by how fun they’d be at a barbecue. McCain was lauded as a “commanding figure” while Obama was derided for coming across as “professorial.” In today’s politics, if you demonstrate your I.Q. your career may be through and a candidate can now admit having smoked marijuana, but not that he has experimented with arugula.

In 2000, the media gave Bush an easy ride because he was affable, but have learned nothing after his presidency turned out to be laughable. We watched Bush strut in his flight suit on an aircraft carrier with a gigantic banner claiming “Mission Accomplished.” When it was clear that the mission had hardly begun, Bush thumped his chest and challenged the insurgents to “bring it on.”

Well, they obliged and now thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead.

After nearly eight years of alienating the world with cowboy diplomacy, the media portrays Obama’s tendency to be humble as a political stumble. Meanwhile, McCain talks tough to the Russians as they continue to rush into Georgia.

At the forum, without hesitation he said he is going to defeat evil. But how does he plan to make good on his shallow sound bite with our military tied up in Iraq and our economy on the rocks?

Vladimir Putin has shrugged off the McCain crowd, essentially saying, “You and what army is going to stop us?” McCain must be acting like a galloping stallion because he knows of secret battalions that can be called on to defends the budding democracies in the Caucasus region.

At the forum, McCain also got a big hand by vowing to continue Bush’s policy of ensuring that tycoons can live nearly tax free. Such economic policies combined with Republican deregulation have sold out our country and helped fuel the rise of China – which not only has more gold medals, but owns much of America’s gold. Perhaps McCain remains so bubbly and blissfully unaware of the housing bubble because he has several million-dollar homes. Yet the media still builds him up as the common man ready to storm the gates, even though he has more in common with Bill Gates.

Of course, the enablers of America’s decline are Evangelical Christians who eschew their economic interests in favor of their bizarre moral fetishes. This penchant for the puritanical was exemplified by Warren’s voyeuristic question asking each candidate, “What would be the greatest moral failure in your life.”

Predictably, this carnival of confession and moral spectacle accomplished nothing and failed to reveal any juicy new “sins” that were not already on public record. Fresh from discussing the implosion of his marriage – a huge biblical abomination – McCain spoke out against gay people marrying. In the backdrop of this event was a low level controversy where Jonathan Crutchley, the co-founder of the gay cruising site Man Hunt, gave a $2,300 donation to McCain. This was odd, considering McCain reconfirmed at the forum that he favored Supreme Court judges who had cast votes to outlaw sodomy – the very Man Hunt product that had made Crutchley rich.

Horrified, the other Man Hunt co-founder, Larry Basile, pressured Crutchley to resign as chairman of the company. While Crutchly has been reined in, a new Harris Poll shows that Obama has only 68-percent of the GLBT vote.

Sadly, 2008 is looking much like the last two elections, where a compliant media joins forces with chest thumping evangelicals and closeted homosexuals to further degrade America’s greatness. If McCain is inaugurated, we will all be invited to the barbecue on his million-dollar Arizona ranch, blissfully unaware that our future is the roasting pig with a rotten apple sticking out of its bloated mouth.

Of course, the further we sink into irrelevancy, the more faith forums we will see – even as the rest of the world loses faith in our ability to lead the world. While Rick Warren is an improvement over Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, he must teach evangelicals there is a better way than the selfishness of modern conservatism, or it will go down as his biggest moral failure.

Joey Ramelli and Megan Donovan were forced to drop out of high school and complete their education at home after being harassed by their classmates during their sophomore and junior years. The students taunted them with antigay slurs. Ramelli was assaulted, his car vandalized.

Lambda Legal recently defended the jury decision in their favor in a California court.

K.K. Logan attended high school in Indiana, where his classmates and teachers supported him when he wore clothes typically associated with girls his age.

But when Logan attended the prom wearing a dress, the principal blocked him at the door. Lambda Legal has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Logan arguing that the school violated his First Amendment rights. It’s heartening to know that many of his classmates and neighbors were on his side.

And recently at a Florida high school, 17-year-old Brittany Martin and other students who formed a gay-straight alliance (GSA) were told they didn’t have the right to meet on school grounds, a right that other student organizations were given. The ACLU took the case to federal court and won on both Equal Access Act and First Amendment grounds.

Lambda Legal has had similar victories.

When a group of students in a Salt Lake City high school were told they couldn’t form a GSA, we stepped in as lead counsel for a coalition of groups that filed suit against the school district for violating the Equal Access Act. And in California, we fought and won a case on behalf of Anthony Colín and others, after the Orange Unified School District Board denied the students permission to meet. These victories and others like them support students and allies who are working together to make schools safer places where all students have the chance to pursue an equal education — and be themselves.

But even where state laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity are on the books, the fight is not over. Lambda Legal filed a ‘friend of the court’ brief to protect a state law in California that is threatened by a lawsuit brought by antigay organizations Advocates for Faith and Freedom and the Alliance Defense Fund, which seek to block their enforcement.

And in New York, we spoke up when two different school districts argued that the state Human Rights Law that prohibits discrimination does not apply to them. One district has already dropped its challenge in response to our letter.

School is the place where young people learn history and geometry — and how to be in the world.

They also learn how the world around them works, and they don’t miss much: they see when teachers, parents, administrators and elected officials stand up for fairness — and when they don’t.

Back-to-school blues should be about the small stuff — not about the fear of violence or discrimination, whether on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, race or any other factor. We will soon issue an enhanced version of one of Lambda Legal’s most popular educational booklets, and we’re especially proud of the title: every child should be able to return to school and be Out, Safe and Respected.