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How can pro-Palin conservatives criticize unmarried pregnant congresswoman?
This is an e-mail I’ve sent today to Maggie Gallagher, social-conservative intellectual, president of the Institute For Marriage and Public Policy, and a leader in the recent successful campaign to pass Proposition 8 in California.
Dear Maggie,
You sent this article in your iMAPP Marriage News mailing for November 21:
Rep. Linda Sanchez: Pregnant Now, Married Later
Please tell me what basis conservatives and Republicans now have to disapprove of an unmarried pregnant congresswoman. They gave up any stand against out of wedlock pregnancy when they gave their total, gushing approval to the Bristol Palin situation. I noticed you were very quiet about these issues in early September when they were roiling. I was hoping to hear more from you. I argued over and over that that the Palin nomination was a disaster for social conservatism, because, by approving of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, solely on the basis that she had not had an abortion, the social conservatives had thrown out their belief in the importance of marriage. Have you had anything to say on this issue?
Below are some articles from my website about this.
Best regards,
Larry Auster
Selection of Articles
The new conservatism, and reactions to Palin speech
excerpt:
But Palin does not represent conservatism. She represents something that has replaced conservatism, at least within the Republican party. I don’t have a name for it yet, though I’ve been arguing intensively against it over these last several days. While there are many things to say about it, the epitome of this new “conservatism” is that under the old conservatism, and the old America, an out of wedlock pregnancy was a shame, while under the new “conservatism,” an out of wedlock pregnancy is proudly displayed before the world, at the highest level of our national life. It is impossible to feel good about this. Thus, paradoxically, the more intriguing, impressive, and novel Sarah Palin becomes, the more demoralizing, desolating, and alienating she becomes.
Why I said that Christian conservatives approve of out-of-wedlock so long as it’s not followed by abortion
A reader criticizes me for having written:
All that the evangelical and Catholic conservatives care about is opposition to abortion. All that’s required for them to be happy is an illegitimate or defective pregnancy, followed by birth. They have no vision of social order, no vision of an overarching good, but have reduced all goods to the good of avoiding abortion. Which means that they embrace every kind of disorder, so long as rejection of abortion is thrown into the mix.
I reply and explain my position further.
How conservative Christian Republicans responded to the news of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy
Below is an entire Lucianne.com thread of September 1 in which L-dotters responded to the announcement that Bristol Palin is pregnant. The comments I’ve read so far are virtually unanimously supportive of Bristol, with not a single critical word being spoken about the situation, but rather with gushing congratulations.
Elizabeth Wright on VFR and Palin
This thread has clear statements by Elizabeth Wright, Carol Iannone, other commenters and me about the meaning for conservatism of conservatives’ approval of Palin, and more generally the idea, as fully expressed in an article in First Things, that all the social conservatives care about now is avoidance of abortion. All other aspects of social conservatism, including marriage, have been thrown out. Under this new social conservative dispensation, out of wedlock birth is a good thing.
Why teen pregnancy, even when followed by marriage, is a tragedy
A brilliant essay by VFR commenter Laura W.
Palin in Colorado: The Good, The Bad, and The Obtuse
Reactions to Palin campaigning with out of wedlock pregnant Bristol on stage with her.
- end of e-mail -
Laura W. writes:
The details of Sanchez’s personal life are so tawdry. The father of her child is divorced; she’s divorced. They’re not married to each other. She’s going to be in a high stress job during pregnancy and the first months of her infant’s life. She withheld the news that she was pregnant at the advanced age of 39 from her constituents when she was campaigning. That’s unethical.
A pregnancy today is, on one hand, a prosaic medical event and, on the other hand, this heavily spiritualized happening, “a blessing,” as Sanchez said, that places the mother in a sacred realm and makes any criticism of her crass and vulgar. So those of us who see immorality in the situation are the anti-spiritual thugs who don’t recognize true beauty and meaning when we see it. This is body-self dualism at its worst.
LA replies:
Yes. Liberalism denies higher truth while “spiritualizing” desire. But not just any desire gets spiritualized—it has to be desire that asserts itself as the highest truth. Desire that sees itself as conforming itself with a truth higher than itself, as in traditional marriage, is just superstition, oppression, received habit. Desire that sees itself as the highest truth is the god of liberalism.
This is the same mentality that was revealed by David Brooks in his November 2003 op-ed supporting homosexual “marriage.” As I’ve pointed out before, Brooks, who had never in his career struck the slightest hint of a spiritual or moral note, suddenly went into this treacly dithyramb about the spirituality of the institution of marriage, in which homosexual couples deserve to be, and must be, included. He never had written about marriage (or of anything) as having a spiritual meaning before. But bring homosexuality into it, and suddenly marriage becomes spiritual.
Laura continues:
Would Brooks ever mention that homosexuality has destroyed the health of millions of men, not just with AIDS but a long list of disorders caused by anal intercourse? The body be damned if it gets in the way of these holy desires. Women who see the ethereal beauty of new life get on planes when they are about to give birth or jeopardize their child’s health with long hours at the office during pregnancy. Same phenomenon. A spiritualizing of the self and its desires lead to this disdain for the physical.
LA replies:
But in his 2003 column, Brooks started off by attacking promiscuous sexual activity.
Laura replies:
Monogamous homosexuality is dangerous too, even causing anal cancer.
LA replies:
That’s an argument that would need to be made. Most people even conservatives say that as far as major health risks are concerned, it’s the promiscuity that is the problem, and that if homosexuals are monogamous then it’s not a health risk. What you say may be true, but it’s not widely known. So you can’t attack Brooks for not knowing it.
Laura replies:
I believe it’s fair to attack him for not knowing it. He’s a major columnist for a major newspaper and is responsible for educating himself. His ignorance on this subject, and the general silence of The New York Times on this subject, is inexcusable. It has cost lives.
Here’s from Jeffrey Satinover’s Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Satinover is a psychiatrist who has taught at both Harvard and Yale):
“The gay male life span, even apart from AIDS and with a long-term partner, is significantly shorter than that of married men in general by more than three decades. [emphasis his]
This was based on a study that looked at 7,000 homosexuals and heterosexuals. Satinover examines a variety of health conditions caused by homosexual activity, including rectal incontinence and “a host of serious and sometimes fatal infections caused by the entry of feces into the bloodstream.”
Paul Mulshine writes:
Great piece on the pregnant congresswoman.
The Palin lunacy continues. I’ll grant she looks good on TV. But is that the new definition of conservatism? If so, I’m voting for Pamela Anderson for president.
November 23
J. writes:
HELLO Bro. L. It is obvious that you are not a bonafide “BORN AGAIN Christian well fed on the Word of God. No one approved of Miss Palin’s foolishness [sinfulness] but there is no reason to condemn her for her sin. God didn’t. The Father says, “none are good,” “all are sinners.” Some has an edge. He said to her. Repent. go, forget about it, and sin no more, for I have already for gotten. Only a born again Christian can do this. Why? Because those of “religions,” Satan, have no Pure Religion, “of,” subject to, the Living God, and the Holy spirit to repent to. Only the Sons of God, yep, born again Christian has Eternal Life, with Jesus. The rest of those “christians” and other sons of the devil shall have eternal life on the big BBQ PIT, on the fires of hell. No AC. No Bud.
Sir! Jesus has no shame or guilt. He is the master of humility. He also died for your atheist soul , probably of the Talmud. He wishes you to spend eternity with Him and His Father God. I suggest that you become humble while you can. There is no purgatory, so it will be an instant trip, up or down. You may choose. He does love you.
God bless you,
LA replies:
Look pal,
The way you describe them, bona fide BORN AGAIN Christians are OUTSIDE of any political society. They exist only in relation to God and Jesus, not in relation to any political or social order. So you, as a Born Again Christian, should GET OUT of political concerns and you should NOT CARE about whether Sarah Palin is successful in politics or not and about what people say about Palin and her family.
But, if people care about an actual, earthly society like the U.S.A. and preserving it for the good it has, rather than letting it be destroyed, then questions of right and wrong, questions of judgment and of standards, like whether out-of-wedlock pregnancy is good for society or not, enter the picture. And no earthly society can run on your standardless, “everything-is-forgiven-because-being-saved-is-the-only-thing-that-matters” type of Christianity.
And you’ve misunderstood something that I talked about a lot when we were discussing the Palin situation a lot back in September. This was not about condemning Bristol Palin as an individual. No one was interested in intruding into Bristol Palin’s personal situation. No one went looking for her to judge her. We were forced to know about her by her mother’s decision to accept the vice presidential nomination. Her situation got shoved in our faces. This was about the effect that it would have on the whole society and its standards if conservatives and Christians accepted Bristol’s situation as normal and ok and approved it. Because once that happened, no one, no parent, no authority, would have the ability to say that it’s better to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy. The ability of society and of parents to guide their daughters in a right way would be destroyed, because the society, by putting the Bristol non-marital sexual relationship and pregnancy on the stage at the Republican National Convention and applauding it, was destroying its ability to uphold the Christian morality on which this country is based, or on which the conservative and Christian part of it is supposed to be based.
Again, this was not about Bristol. This was about the standards of behavior that our society either upholds, or doesn’t uphold. And either choice has enormous effects on the happiness and well being of millions of people. Or maybe you think that illegitimacy is not harmful to individuals and society. In which case you are no better than a typical destructive liberal.
So, you have two choices. You can be a born-again Christian, and say that there shouldn’t be any standards, and that no person or behavior should be judged, and STAY OUT OF POLITICS (politics being a concern with what is good for a particular society and the people who live in it). Or you can care about this particular society, in which case you need to uphold normative standards for the society and to say which behaviors are acceptable and which are not.
It’s one or the other, you can’t have both.
This wasn’t my idea. I had no thought of excluding Born Again Christians from anything. I’m just responding to YOUR description of what Born-Agains are about.
I repeat: based on the way you have described Born Again Christians, they should have nothing to do with politics, and you should divorce yourself from any concern with Sarah Palin’s political career and what people like me say about her and her family.
LA continues:
You write, in connection with the Bristol situation:
“[Jesus] said to [the woman]. Repent. go, forget about it, and sin no more, for I have already for gotten.”
How do you know that Bristol has repented? How do you know that? If she had repented, would she have appeared at the GOP convention alongside her boyfriend, being approved for the very sin that you say she had repented of? Would she have campaigned with her mother all across the country, standing on stage reminding everyone of her unmarried pregnant condition, and by that very fact having that condition be approved of?
So your message to me is a lot of bull. You talk about the Living God and the Holy spirit to repent to, and eternal life with Jesus, but in reality it’s just a cover for liberalism and sin: do you what you feel like doing, and don’t get judged for it.
If Bristol had repented, and her family with her, then she would have quietly gone away until her personal situation was straightened out. But she and her family didn’t do that, did they? Instead, they paraded her, still unmarried and pregnant, before the world.
So it’s all bull. You claim to be a Born Again Christian, but in reality you are a liberal using the idea of forgiveness to legitimize sin.
November 24
Clark Coleman writes:
Re: Your born-again critic
First, it is standard doctrine among Christians that we are to judge actions but not people, i.e. we leave eternal judgment of anyone’s soul to God, but we must be able to judge certain actions as being immoral. “J.” does the opposite. He criticizes you for judging Bristol Palin’s actions, even though you do not pass eternal judgment on her; but then he uses the language of eternal damnation several times in relation to you: “your atheist soul,” the “eternal BBQ,” etc. He needs to spend a little more time thinking before writing.
Second, the often misunderstood “he who is without sin cast the first stone” passage at John 7:53 is certainly not a statement that Christians cannot judge the actions of another to be immoral. If it were, it would lead to the same self-contradiction that all leftism and relativism run into: In this case, if someone criticizes me for criticizing the actions of another, then he is violating the supposed commandment not to criticize my actions!
I have studied this passage several times in depth over the years and can provide a good explication of it if desired.
Irwin Graulich writes:
I do not know of even one religious conservative Christian (or Jew) who claims that what Palin’s daughter had done was acceptable behavior. First of all, just because Sarah Palin’s daughter became pregnant out of wedlock, does not mean that her mother (or even the daughter) cannot be critical of out of wedlock births. The big question is, “Can one support an ideal, yet not live up to that ideal?” The answer is “Of course!”
I know plenty of people who are divorced as many as three times and they all say that the ideal is to have one happy marriage. In fact, I think that divorced people have more credibility on this issue than people who have only been married once. It is ridiculous to tell anyone who cannot live up to an ideal, that they still cannot hold that ideal as the best way to live a life. The reason so many people are critical of Sarah Palin is because you can only label a conservative a “hypocrite,” whereas a liberal can never be a hypocrite.
Why is this? Because according to most people who have really not thought the hypocrisy issue through, you can only be a hypocrite if you violate standards that you promote or judge—and liberals rarely promote or judge personal behavior. Their moral preoccupation almost always concerns social positions. For example, liberals judge people by their positions on global warming, not on how they behave. That is why Jesse Jackson was never labeled a hypocrite when he cheated on his wife and had a baby out of wedlock, even though he was a clergyman. But Jesse had the correct liberal positions on social issues.
Society is paying a terrible price for the quick dismissal of conservatives caught sinning. Being supportive of Palin’s daughter in no way says that she was justified in getting pregnant before marriage.
LA replies:
Irwin, you’re completely missing my point. As I’ve said before, this is not primarily about the Palins, it is about the consequences to conservatism of conservatives giving their complete approval to the Palin situation. If you don’t believe that they’re giving their complete approval to it, then please read the thread at Lucianne.com that I copied. Out-of-wedlock pregnancy was once considered a shame; now it is an object of ecstatic approval among Republicans and “conservatives,” and warmly greeted and placed on the stage at the Republican National Convention. If there was any criticism of the out-of-wedlock pregnancy, either on the part of the Palins or on the part of the Republican party, as you say there is, would Bristol and her boyfriend have been feted the way they were? If Sarah Palin thought the out-of-wedlock pregnancy was wrong, would she have campaigned with her daughter on stage with her across the country? No. She would have left Bristol quietly in the background until her marital situation was resolved.
And by the way, it’s almost three months since Sarah and Todd Palin announced that the then five-month pregnant Bristol was getting married.
Everything about this situation announced: we’re beyond the old strictures now; so long as a pregnant girl doesn’t have an abortion, the situation is a blessing. This makes it impossible for society, for conservatives, for Republicans, for parents, to say clearly to their daughters that out-of-wedlock pregnancy is to be avoided. The social authority that once backed up that position has been cut away—and it was cut away by conservatives.
November 25
Laura W. writes:
Monogamy and legitimacy are not simply “ideals” in the sense Mr. Graulich uses the word. They are moral laws without which our society, and individuals, cannot properly function. Each and every violation is significant and consequential. The thrice-divorced person who says he upholds the ideal of marriage is comparable to the owner of a chemical company who dumps arsenic and PCBs in a river and then says he upholds the ideal of a clean environment. Who cares what his ideal is? The damage is done. He has trashed the community and its standards. Does a thief appear before a judge and say, “Oh, but Your Honor, my ideal is that no one ever steal?” A society without moral and civil laws has no ideals.
Mark L. writes:
I am appalled that J., claiming to be a born-again Christian would write such a haughty and stupid (if not unregenerate) message to you. I apologize to you on this person’s behalf. Please feel free to let J. know that another born-again believer (i.e., me) finds the tone he is using with you to be most unwinsome and unbecoming of one who claims to value another’s soul. J. would cut off your ear and then try and get you to listen! But then again, it’s doubtful that J. even believes in eternal punishment, which is a matter so solemn that punchy and playful designations like “eternal barbecue pit” betray the mindset of someone who is gleefully lashing out, rather than someone who is seriously concerned about another’s soul. J. richly deserves your hard-hitting response, and would do well to ask him/herself whether he/she has truly repented and experienced conversion. Hey J., you sound like a false professor to me.
Regarding your response, I find myself in the minority position among VFR readers, in that I’m actually all for evangelical Christians being apolitical and concentrating on spreading the message of God’s kingdom, which is “not of this world,” as Christ said. I know you disagree that this ideal should govern our reality, but I can live with that. The reason I read VFR is for its bracing social critique and sober-mindedness on the big moral issues of the day. I share many of your concerns, but I’m one of those who believe the gospel is the only message that can have a transformative effect on society, and that the deep fear and reverence of God that the gospel produces is what is most needed today. Put simply, personal conversions on a significant scale (and there have been periods of *genuine* revival in the not-too-distant past) can have a wonderful effect on public morality. I believe there is historical evidence to support this.
I truly believe what I’m saying here. I see World Magazine coming out strongly against gay marriage and abortion, but going liberal on issues like immigration. I’m sorry, but when Christians start promoting lawlessness and the subordination of our social order, they are actually being disobedient to scripture—and bringing shame on the gospel and the cause of Christ. We believers have no right to do some of the things we are trying to do in the political arena. And that’s why I think we ought to get outta politics.
Which brings me to Palin, the darling of the mainstream evangelical movement. Again, evangelicals have NO RIGHT to demand that their fellow Americans accept the whole “Christians are not perfect, we’re all sinners, we make mistakes, that’s why we all need God’s forgiveness” spiel. If Christian families are a dysfunctional mess, those families should be ashamed, and not have the temerity to tout their failure and their worldliness as virtues.
I think you and your readers really excelled during the Palin controversy, and you have every right and reason to criticize the normalization of teen pregnancy and resulting illegitimacy—as well as the upending of God’s moral order viz. women taking the reins of political power. You and your readers were among the only voices (apart from a minority of evangelicals) who saw Palin as representing something destructive for America, albeit she herself seems like a nice person, and one who has attractive personal qualities. Interestingly, it was those evangelicals who are mainly apolitical (e.g. Todd Friel and others) who expressed deep concern over the message the church is sending to stay-at-home moms by embracing Superwoman Sarah. I share that concern, along with many of the others that were voiced at VFR.
Anyway, thanks for letting me get all this off my chest.
Irwin Graulich replies to LA:
I think YOU completely missed the point. I did not see even one comment that approved of what Palin’s daughter had done. What would you have liked the Republicans to have done at the convention. Put her on stage and then get a giant hook to take her off stage. Or perhaps there should have been a public flogging. I think it was handled properly——showing that all families have horrible issues that arise, and in this circumstance she is not having an abortion—she is getting married. That was the correct position based on the actual circumstances. Had they left her behind in Alaska, it would have become even more controversial. As a parent, you cannot just disregard the child or lock her up in the closet for this irresponsible action. For me it was a positive that Palin was able to deal with the problem properly.
Conservatives gave complete approval to how the situation was handled AFTER the daughter became pregnant. No one approved her getting pregnant. For you to say that Palin or any conservative announced that pregnancy before marriage is some sort of blessing, is very insensitive and incorrect on your part. Perhaps we should give Bristol 5 years in prison!!!
The entire episode certainly did put a terrible stigma on out of wedlock pregnancies, which is an important conservative value in a moral society. Keeping Bristol back in Alaska and not addressing the problem publicly, would have done the opposite.
LA replies:
As I have been saying since Monday morning, September 1, a few hours before Bristol’s pregnancy was announced, Palin, given her family circumstances, should not have been offered and should not have accepted the nomination. That argument became much stronger after the pregnancy was announced. Given that Palin was nominated, then certainly Levi Johnston should not have been present at the Convention, alongside Bristol, which was tantamount to approving their relationship at the highest level of our national life. If you don’t see that, if you don’t see that such a thing would never have been done before, if you don’t see that that represents a complete abandonment of the traditional and conservative consensus on illegitimacy, then I won’t be able to persuade you of it.
Irwin Graulich writes:
I think you are reading too much into the situation. If you were not happy with the Palin nomination, the pregnancy should have nothing to do with it. I said from the start that nominating Palin by McCain was either a brilliant move or an extremely foolish decision. Obviously, it turned out to be another very idiotic decision by a man who has made many foolish decisions in his life. McCain deserved to lose and I would throw him out of the Republican party if I were a Republican leader—which would show the country that the Republican party stands for true conservatism and conservative ideas—not the compromising bullshit of John McCain who partners with Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy.
As far as the Bristol Palin controversy, I think you have fallen into the trap of many Washington elite where if something is done in your life that is wrong, from having an illegal housekeeper to your kid on drugs, it somehow disqualifies you from a major public office. Now how silly is that!!!!!?????
Guess what—I go over the speed limit quite a bit and jaywalk every single day. So what does that say about me? See—where does it end?
Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 22, 2008 03:00 PM | Send
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