God & Country

Sarah Palin's Surprising Line on Sex

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November 17, 2009 RSS Feed Print
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By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

On Oprah Winfrey's show yesterday, Sarah Palin said her daughter Bristol had one message for other young women about her experience as a teen mom:

Her only public mission right now is to remind her sisters and to remind other young women, her peers, that there are consequences to unprotected sex.

It's pretty surprising to see Palin promote that message because it implies that young women should practice safe sex, which is at odds with the message of conservative Christian groups that constitute Palin's strongest base of institutional support. Group like Focus on the Family teach that safe sex is an oxymoron and that Christians should delay sex until marriage.

"The promotion of 'safe sex' in our schools is driven by a radical philosophical dogma, not by medical or scientific reasons," Focus on the Family says on its website. Elsewhere on the site, Focus urges Christians to conform "your body and your sexual self to God's vision of human sexuality as laid out in Scripture and articulated by church tradition—for married people, fidelity, and for unmarried people, abstinence."

Palin, by contrast, said nothing about delaying sex until marriage (at least in the clips Oprah aired).

Will this cause heartburn among conservative Christian groups? I doubt it; they're so thrilled by Palin that they're likely to turn the other cheek, at least publicly.

But as she embarks on her Going Rogue media blitz, it will be interesting to see if she bucks the conservative Christian line on other issues—and if she tweaks her messaging on Bristol, sex, or marriage.

Tags:
sex education,
sex,
religion,
Sarah Palin

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I believe we should do everything possible to limit the number of illegals who make it into the country. I don't advocate a train to Dachau. Conception should be prevented. Once "They're Here", civilized people don't murder them. They're just as much "Here" in the uterus as they are after they pass through the birth canal. Is a guy on a ventilator a non-human? Can't breath for himself? Put him in the garbage can? The preborn child can't breath for himself. He can't be human. Right?

Robert H. Galloway of MN 12:56PM November 19, 2009

Sarah Palin has a long history of supporting access to contraception because she believes that while one SHOULD remain abstinent until marriage, she knows that this is not realistic for many people.

She takes the SANE pro-life view. People are going to have sex outside of marriage. This has been happening since time immemorial and the Bible discusses it in great detail - often making it seem more important that other rituals (e. g. proper cleansing after a woman's period) were followed. With a long and even biblical history it isn't going to change today. If there are to be fewer abortions, and fewer people wanting an abortion, making contraception available is an obvious requirement for a civilized society.

Which is to say Mrs. Palin is a decent person, not the far right nut job that the far left nut jobs in the media portray her as - I was pretty surprised to see such poor reporting in USNWR!

Andy of WA 3:29PM November 18, 2009

this post even drew 5 comments.

Gildoff is an atheist promoting a non-sense view of what Christians believe, He like other atheists twists quotes and information and others beliefs and the range of who believes what, to further his pointless agenda of souring all faith in the hearts and minds of all people.

Shawn Senca of FL 3:26PM November 18, 2009

God & Country

Dan Gilgoff covers religion for U.S. News & World Report. He is the author of The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War, and is a former politics editor at beliefnet. E-mail Dan at godandcountry@usnews.com.

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