Wednesday, September 03, 2008

The Stench of Holy Hypocrisy: Mommy Palin, Family Values & Sexual Politics

I would normally defer to Barak Obama's view that candidates' families are off limits, something that right-wing bloviators have not afforded his wife. But Sarah Palin deserves no such consideration because this gun-packing, gay-bashing hypocrite of a mommy has made so-called family values a centerpiece of her politics, invevitably shining a harsh light on wayward daughter Bristol, a precocious 17-year-old whose hormones answered the siren call of premartial sex.

The mere thought that Palin and the right-wing Christianists who have the Republican Party by the short and curlies believe that they can tell my children what they can and cannot do with their bodies, let alone use proven methods to prevent pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases, is outrageous. That they believe that the government should never help pay for these proven methods is awful enough, but Palin's line-item veto of a bill that to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live is obscene.

But if you are a septuagenarian like John McCain, not only is Viagra okay, but the government should pay for your penis-embolding script so you can screw a woman who under family values law must do the man's bidding and is forbidden any kind of protection not matter her age or level of maturity. If that isn't predatory sex, I don't know what is.

That these culture warriors use their God as an adjustable wrench that can be dialed back and forth to fit political expedience is simply amazing. Exhibit A du jour: What Briston Palin did would be considered immoral if her mother wasn't a Christianist spear carrier.

The shame of all this sexual politiking is that all of a sudden the knocked-up Bristol Palin is growing up way too fast in a media bubble, another victim of the adjustable wrench crowd's demand that abstinence-only education be not just their law, but the law of the land.

Bristol is getting married because that is mandatory under family values law. Never mind that she is said to not love the father and the father doesn't want kids, two strikes against a successful marriage if there ever were ones.

Bible thumpers like Sarah Palin are extraordinarily screwed up in their own right. Palin also gets extra points for the most un-Christian habit of lying. But her and their intolerance and fantaticism is elevated to another plane because of how they prey on women, and especially the young and innocent.

Photograph by Clark James Mischler/Getty Images

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