From the Washington Post, "Palin's Pregnancy Problem" by Sally Quinn
Behold the logical train wrecks and serial cheap-shots that ensue when big media types pretend to try to understand the Evangelical community:
And now we learn the 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant. She and the father of the child plan to marry. This may be a hard one for the Republican conservative family-values crowd to swallow. Of course, this can happen in any family. But it must certainly raise the question among the evangelical base about whether Sarah Palin has been enough of a hands-on mother…
Southern Baptist leaders like Richard Land and Al Mohler have praised McCain's choice. But these are the same men who support this statement from the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message:
"A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation."
I wouldn't expect Quinn to know about the Biblical concept of "servant leadership" and how it means a lot more than the quote that she so jarringly wrenches out of context. (I didn't understand it when I first reported on it in regards to Mike Huckabee. )Then again, perhaps Quinn is more astute than I was and does know about the concept and was just taking a disingenuous potshot.
A further thought - is Quinn not a reporter? Al Mohler isn't a particularly hard guy to get a hold of. I even had dinner with him once. A supremely decent individual, he didn't strike me as the type who wants to keep women in perpetual servitude. If Quinn really wanted Mohler's thoughts on the matter, she could have gotten him on the phone and asked him. But I would wager Quinn knew as well as I know that Mohler's response wouldn't have squared with her predetermined narrative.
In other words, any such conversation would have inconveniently interfered with one of the most distasteful opinion columns to run in the Post in recent memory.
