Bristol Palin and the Republican Double-StandardPaul Hogarthbyline‚ Sep. 03‚ 2008Barack Obama was right when he said Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is “off-limits” and deserves some privacy. Bristol Palin is not the issue here—it’s her mom’s hypocrisy. Both John McCain and Sarah Palin support “abstinence-only” sex education, so the fact that her unmarried daughter got pregnant is unfortunately relevant within that context. But what’s far more disturbing is how the moral crusaders on the religious right have chosen to respond. Rather than condemn Bristol for “living in sin” (as they’re apt to accuse others), they commend her for not getting an abortion—and planning to marry her boyfriend. On the other hand, when a black unwed teenager from the inner city gets pregnant, these same demagogues denounce it as evidence that our society is crumbling apart. Could there be some latent racism here, which creates this double standard? |