Bristol Palin’s Pregnancy and Her Mother’s “Task From God”

Harry T. Cook

9/12/08

Bristol Palin’s pregnancy is nobody’s business outside of the families involved.

By itself, it should not be taken as a disqualification of her mother as a candidate for Vice President of the United States. The fact that so much has been made of it both by Gov. Palin’s critics and her supporters is another sure sign of America’s adolescent preoccupation with sexuality. I grew up in a largely rural culture in which so-called out-of-wedlock pregnancies were neither unusual nor much remarked upon, save by the vicious whispering societies of people with too much time on their hands. As much as our elders of the early to mid-1950s preached sternly against sexual relations outside of marriage, we had them anyway.

Those males with access to condoms in those pre-Pill days and those females who had made been aware of the mathematics and mechanics of the menstrual cycle were more often among those whose furtive trysts remained known only to themselves. Young Ms. Palin is not among those fortunate ones, being the daughter of a potential U.S. Vice President running on a platform that is among the most Puritanical and right-wing in history.

It is not known, of course, whether Ms. Palin and her future child’s father gave any thought to what the Catholic hierarchy and many evangelical Christian leaders insist is the only important consequence of sexual intercourse. In any event, “thinking” as a function is not usually a big part of the sexual experience. The fuss over the Palin pregnancy – whether as lauded, weirdly, by Republicans or as sniffed at by liberal Democrats who ought to know better – is the reverse side of a coin. John McCain has had to suck up to his newly acquired evangelical Christian base whose members are death on reproductive rights and gay marriage – in other words, the obsession of that base with sex. Arrgh!

That obsession truly mystifies Europeans who seem to accept sex as one of life’s lovelier pleasures along with good food, good wine and the 35-hour work week. They do not react except with wry amusement to the pronouncements of sclerotic Vatican scolds concerning the alleged mortal sins of contraception and abortion. There is no European parallel to America’s accursed Religious Right, or at least no parallel to the obeisance paid by U.S. politicians of all stripes to the James Dobsons and Gary Bauers of this world. I hope that Bristol Palin’s decision to carry her pregnancy to full term and to raise the eventual child in marriage to the father is the decision of an informed conscience. If that is so, there is no legitimate story to pursue. I’m certain that John McCain and those who want him so badly to win in November would agree. And had his convention handlers not thought it so irredeemably cute to put the whole fam damily on such vulgar display at the convention, it would be easier to let it go. In that respect, Barack Obama has led the way, saying that it’s a personal matter and reminding people that his mother gave birth to him when she was just a year older than young Ms. Palin is now. Ergo, Gov. Palin should be judged as a candidate solely on her political ideas, viz.,that women’s reproductive rights are virtually nonexistent, that women should not have recourse to abortion even in cases of rape or incest or when their lives would be in jeopardy by going to full term Gov. Palin should be judged on her kooky idea that the 2,500 year-old poetry of Genesis should be given equal time with actual science in public school biology classes. She should be judged on her truly alarming proposition that the U.S. war with Iraq is “a task from God.” What god? Surely not the One that proscribes breaking and entering in Commandment No. 8.

The pre-emptive U.S. invasion of Iraq can be likened to the ineptness of a poorly armed burglar who broke into an occupied house only to be repelled by its angry residents. As with George W. Bush’s “surge,” the burglar retreats, gathers up his brother Darryl and his other brother Darryl and returns to finish the job even if it takes 100 years.

If the Iraq war is “a task from God,” atheism is the only answer.

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© Copyright 2008, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.

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