Kirsty McLuckie: How's that abstinence-only sex education coming along, guys?

Published on Tuesday 2 September 2008 19:43

IN THE few days since Sarah Palin's appointment as John McCain's running mate, the list of personal matters she has felt obliged to get off her chest have certainly raised conservative eyebrows and called into question the vetting procedures of the Republicans.

Purely to clarify matters and bring them out in the open, the pro-family-values conservative candidate for the vice-presidency first had to concede that her husband has been arrested in the past for drink-driving.

Then there is the little matter that Palin herself is currently under investigation to determine whether her dismissal of a public employee had anything to do with his refusal to fire her brother-in-law, who divorced Palin's sister.

Perhaps alarm bells should have rung when those charged with vetting the candidate discovered her choice of children's names – would you trust the world's largest economy to the person who saw fit to give them the monikers Trig, Track, Bristol, Willow and Piper?

But by far and away the most interesting to the press is the pregnancy of Palin's 17-year-old daughter. For someone who bangs on about family values, a daughter up the duff before school-leaving age could be seen as a serious embarrassment.

Both McCain and Palin have declared her interesting condition a private matter and I can sympathise with the view: the unplanned pregnancy of a teenager is surely nobody else's business.

So why, if that is the case, did Palin, who campaigns on a Christian, anti-abortion ticket, announce to the world that her daughter planned to marry the baby's father?

This statement is said to have blunted negative reaction among the party's social conservatives. And it is forecast that the news could even help consolidate the image of Palin and her family as typical of the average American home – troubled but moral.

The quickie wedding – shotgun or otherwise – would certainly keep the situation out of the headlines during the November elections, even though the statistical chances for such a marriage being happy and long are miniscule, even in the conservative American heartland. Wouldn't it be a much more sensible, considered move to help the pregnant girl to complete her education and stay in the family home until she is old enough to decide whom, if anyone, she wishes to marry?

While you have to respect Palin's beliefs, the thought that she is allowing her daughter to compound one major life error with another, possibly in part to safeguard her mother's political career, should ring more alarm bells than any mere family matter.