Palin's religious fervor reveals cracks in political morality

By Brian Reinhart     9/25/08 7:00pm

To the Honorable Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska:Earlier this month, just days after your nomination for the vice presidency, we learned that your teenage daughter, 17-year-old Bristol Palin, is pregnant. Already the talk about the miniature scandal is dying down, but you must still be distressed that this calamity occurred in your own family and that it was thrust into the national spotlight. The purpose of this letter is to demonstrate that you have greater reasons to be alarmed. You must accept that you and your misguided political and religious beliefs are the primary causes of poor Bristol's troubles.

Allow me to explain. First, as governor of Alaska, you have consistently supported "abstinence-only" sex education. This means that you believe teenagers should not be taught methods of avoiding pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, in the hope that they will avoid sex altogether until marriage. But this policy has a consistent, universal record of failure.

Just ask your daughter.

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Opposition to sex education is a position which stands against the evidence. Acoording to the Journal of Adolescent Health, roughly one-third of teens over age 15 report never being told about birth control methods in their sex-ed classes. Not by coincidence, a CDC report contends that one quarter of American teenage girls are afflicted with a sexually transmitted disease, the highest recorded rate in history. The problems created by our abstinence policies put more "sexually liberal" nations in the shade. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof reports that the proportion of America's teenage population affected by gonorrhea is 70 times higher than in Belgium or France. We also have a teen pregnancy rate eight times that of the Netherlands. The fact that your ideas about sex education failed in your own household should awaken you to the fact that they are failing both across the United States and around the world.

But you will not see the error in your ways, because you are blinded by a greater error. You, Governor Palin, are an evangelical Christian, one who believes that God commands you to support specific Republican political policies. Your beliefs affect more than just your stance on sexual education. You believe that God willed us to invade Iraq, and that he has asked you to build a new oil pipeline in Alaska. This month your church is hosting a conference which attempts to "cure" gay people of their sexuality. Your religious convictions also command that Bristol Palin now marry the father of her baby.

This is a regrettable decision. Frankly, Governor Palin, if you expect your approval rating to rise because of this action, you will disappointed, and if you are requiring Bristol to bear the child and marry the father based purely on your own principles, you should be ashamed.

Your hard-core evangelism jeopardizes your daughter's new marriage. For irreligious Americans - those who do not subscribe to a faith - the divorce rate is 21 percent. For mainstream Protestant Christians, whom you might call liberals or moderates, the divorce rate is essentially the same (25 percent), according to Barma Group polls. But in your group, evangelical extremists, divorces occur in over one-third of marriages (34 percent). In Oklahoma, where three-quarters of the population got married in a church and attend services at least once a week, the Oklahoma City Journal-Record reports that the divorce rate is 50 percent higher than the national average. Instead of safeguarding the sanctity of marriage, evangelical extremism has the opposite effect.

As you embark on a national campaign with the goal of being elected vice president of the United States, I hope you will remember what you have learned about yourself in Juneau, AK. It was your daughter Bristol's impulsive, immature behavior which brought on this near-scandal. In truth, though, the indirect causes of Bristol's pregnancy were your own irrational religious beliefs and untenable political views as they influenced your parenting. A more important cause, of course, was your own immature example.

Twenty years ago, you eloped with your high-school sweetheart soon after you, too, conceived your first child out of wedlock. Track Palin, who is now headed to Iraq in the Army, was born seven months after the elopement and hasty wedding. Your daughter is merely following in your footsteps.

In a sense, then, you have taught Bristol Palin your "traditional family values" very well indeed. From your example Bristol learned that premature sex was acceptable, but from your teachings she never learned how to practice it safely. If in the coming months you seek some explanation for why this crisis of morals has befallen your family, look no further than yourself.

Regards.

Brian Reinhart is a Wiess College sophomore.

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