Palin's Pregnant Daughter

On the one hand, I agree that candidates’ children should be off limits. On the other hand, I am a parent who supports a high school English curriculum that includes some books that deal frankly with issues of human sexuality. In my community, that has earned the ire of certain evangelical Christians who have tried to get those books removed. Local Christian talk show host Sandy Rios has stated on her radio show that parents like me must not care about the welfare of our children because we would allow our children to be exposed to works like Slaughterhouse Five, Freakanomics, Beloved, The Things They Carried, and The Laramie Project.

So while I do not wish to cause any pain to Bristol Palin, I am curious to know her mother’s thoughts about how public schools should deal with issues of sexuality because in my community, the evangelical Christians of Sarah Palin’s ilk like to blame permissive parents for inciting young peoples’ sexual desires with racy books. I am not bothered by the fact that Sarah Palin’s daughter is pregnant any more than I was bothered by the fact that Dick Cheney’s daughter was a lesbian. I am bothered by the extent to which the conservative Christian wing of the Republican party thinks that other people’s sexuality is their business.