Why Bristol Palin Is Different

Ever since Sarah Palin revealed that her unmarried teenage daughter Bristol was pregnant, conservatives have been struggling with what liberals see as a contradiction between our fierce opposition to unwed motherhood and our support for Palin and family values. Now comes word that the wedding is off and conservatives once again are having difficulty explaining why Bristol Palin is different from other unwed mothers.

During the campaign Focus on the Family's James Dobson largely ignored the difficult unwed mother question and congratulated her on not having an abortion. Party of Death author Ramesh Ponnuru pointed out that she was not technically an unwed mother yet because she was engaged, unlike Murphy Brown, even though that didn't quite work out in the end. Others took a Kübler-Ross journey from denial to anger to acceptance.

When some liberals attacked conservatives for being hypocritical, future New York Times columnist Ross Douthat brilliantly exposed their own hypocrisy. "Suppose that social conservatives hadn't rallied around the Palin family after news of Bristol Palin's pregnancy broke," he wrote. "If anything remotely like this had happened, all we'd hear is satisfied chirping about how the response to Bristol Palin's pregnancy proves, once and for all, that social conservatives don't give two figs about the rights of the unborn; what they really care about is controlling women's sex lives and reinforcing patriarchal norms, full stop…. They're mad that religious conservatives aren't fitting neatly into the stereotypes that liberals have spent years cultivating." In other words, liberals would have attacked us even if we had responded the way they thought we would based on what we have said in the past, so by responding in a completely opposite way we proved how hypocritical they are. But although Douthat gleefully pointed out liberals' hypocrisy, he seemed reluctant to point out why conservatives were not being hypocritical even though the answer was staring him in the face.

Why is Bristol Palin different? She is different because she is a conservative.

It's different when unmarried teenage mothers come from conservative, wealthy Christian families. Although it would be preferable if her child had a father, even a white trash one, she will still be able to raise her child with the kinds of values that liberals, poor people, gays and non-Christians would not be able to give to their little bastard children who are destined to become our future criminals. Why are conservatives so reluctant to point out this obvious fact?

The problem with Murphy Brown, who was famously attacked by Dan Quayle in a speech written by Lisa Schiffren, was not just that she was an unwed mother but that she was a liberal unwed mother. As a liberal and a fictional character she would not be able to raise her child with good, conservative, Christian, nonfictional values. And the problem with Rep. Loretta Sanchez, whom Schiffren attacked for having a child before she married her fiancé, is that she is a liberal and her child is doomed to grow up without any values at all. But Schiffren, who supported Sarah Palin, seemed reluctant to point out this important difference, writing, "Being 18 and a single mother is only a little easier for a pretty, middle-class girl than it is for less well-protected girls from those parts of our society where marriage and involved fathers disappeared a couple of generations ago" and finally concluding "all I have to say is, 'poor girl.'" Instead of appearing so tentative, which just made many readers why she hadn't gone after Bristol with the same vehemence that characterized her attacks on a liberal fictional character and a liberal congresswoman, Schiffren should say out loud what all conservatives are thinking: Being an unwed mother is different when you're a conservative.

Kathryn Jean Lopez has been one of our strongest advocates for the need for children to have two parents of the opposite sex, which is why, like Sarah Palin, she is opposed to gay marriage and supports a Constitutional amendment banning it. But instead of noting that Bristol Palin's child will grow up without a father, she wrote, "Let the girl live in peace with her child." Her reaction was similar to the response she had when the Vice President's lesbian daughter Mary Cheney decided to have a baby: "Unless Mary Cheney asks to be a spokeswoman on the issue, folks ought to leave her alone." And yet when she wrote about lesbian Rosie O'Donnell's efforts to adopt a child, Lopez felt compelled to point out her "concerns about instability, sexual-orientation confusion, and emotional problems." What is the difference between Mary Cheney and Rosie O'Donnell? Again, it's obvious. Mary Cheney is a good conservative woman who will no doubt teach her children that they shouldn't become lesbians like their mother and Rosie O'Donnell is a foul-mouthed liberal who will teach her children that homosexuality and bestiality are acceptable lifestyle choices.

Some conservatives have attacked Bristol. Debbie Schlussel claims that conservatives should be "intellectually honest," and expresses the bizarre notion that we should apply the exact same standards to conservatives that we apply to liberals. "If one of Barack Obama's daughters was a single mother, we conservatives would be legitimately all over it. Or if her name was Sha'niqua," she writes. (I'm not sure why she believes the situation would have been different if Sarah Palin had given her daughter a black-sounding name.) Schlussel then blames the fact that Sarah Palin is a working mother for her daughter's pregnancy, which is absurd because Palin supporter Phyllis Schlafly proved long ago that you can work and still be a good mother as long as you are a conservative. Robert Stacy McCain also condemned Bristol harshly, writing, "A child's misconduct always reflects poorly on the family" and then went on to denounce girls who would not date him when he was single because they were "snooty, stuck-up, cliqueish, insufferable demanding, with a high-handed and disdainful way of dealing with people beneath her status, having a self-important attitude," which is of course understandable because what girl from a good family wouldn't have wanted to date McCain when he was single, but again I'm not sure what the relevance is to Bristol Palin although it might be something he would want to explore in therapy.

Although some Palin supporters have expressed disappointment with such views, many conservatives seem to be reluctant to write about this subject at all. Why aren't more conservatives standing up and defending Bristol Palin? Why can't we unequivocally state there should be different standards for liberals and conservatives? One of the problems with liberalism is that they believe everyone is the same and that all morality is relative. But if there is anything that conservatives reject it is the idea of moral equivalency. When America tortures a terrorist suspect that is not the same as when a terrorist tortures someone. Killing civilians in a war or accidentally executing the innocent is not the same as abortion. Denying gays the right to marry is not the same as outlawing miscegenation. Giving corporations tax cuts is not the same as welfare. David Vitter and Larry Craig are not the same as Bill Clinton. Liberals are always trying to confuse us by making false analogies but conservative ideology is based on rejecting false equivalencies and making important distinctions. So we shouldn't be reluctant to say that indeed it is different when a conservative teenager has a child out of wedlock and an inner-city liberal teenager does. We should have the courage of our convictions and not play the liberal game of moral equivalency. Instead of trying to explain away Bristol's pregnancy we should be defending it, holding her up as an example of the difference between liberal teenage unwed mothers and conservative teenage unwed mothers. Because just as it is true that, as Richard Nixon once said, "When the President does it, that means it is not illegal." when a good Christian conservative has a child out of wedlock, that means it's not immoral.

Update: Lisa Schiffren responds with a very thoughtful email: "I see this a little differently than you do. I agree with Kathryn that there is a difference between a grown woman in a position of power (Rosie, Murphy (fictional, but..) and Sanchez), and a private citizen, like Cheney, and even more so like Bristol Palin who got pregnant at 17. If she had committed a felony she would have been punished lightly. As it is, she is a kid who made a mistake and will pay a lot for it -- in the public eye for reasons not of her creation. The other women are role models, who exert cultural influence -- and the first three made a big point of rationalizing and justifying their actions. I don't know about the liberal/conservative divide. I think it matters some, but not ultimately. Religion matters more. And personal grit more still. A large, supportive family helps. If I sounded tentative, it is because I think that we, as a society, have so screwed this up that it is hard to see a way back to a norm of marriage before babies."

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