Socially Conservative Parenting Fail

Apparently Palin's 17-year-old daughter Bristol has been following some parts of the Bible more closely than others.

In top form, Dan Savage pounces:

I’m sorry, but if abstinence education can’t keep the daughter of the evangelical governor of Alaska off the cock, what hope is there for the daughters—and sons—of average Americans? Seriously: The GOP has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into abstinence “education” programs over the last 10 years (with an assist from Democrats terrified of appearing “soft” on teen sex). This public investment of funds gives us the right to ask why Palin’s daughter, despite this massive outlay on the part of the American taxpayer and the example of her married heterosexual fundy parents, nevertheless become sexually active while still in high school.

In a follow-up post, he continues:

Yes, ordinary American families face this situation all the time. Fewer would face this situation, however, if we had comprehensive sex education in the United States, and teenagers had access to accurate information about birth control methods and contraceptives were made easily available.

And it’s great that Bristol is choosing to keep this baby. As the adoptive parent of a child born to a pair of unwed teenagers, I’m certainly not in favor of abortion in all circumstances. But it’s a choice that the teenagers should be able to make with, whenever possible, input from their families.

Adding insult to injury, CNN offers up this gem:

In a 2006 Eagle Forum questionnaire, Palin indicated that she supported funding abstinence-until-marriage education programs instead of teaching sex-education programs.

"Explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support," Palin wrote in the conservative group’s questionnaire.

Perhaps "explicit" sex-ed (you know, the kind that actually talks frankly about sex, its dangers, and how best to manage them) wouldn't have been such a bad idea for Bristol to have received in school after all.

Truly, this incident is worthy of the fail blog.

But will this injection of empirical reality into Palin's life cause her to reconsider the effectiveness of the right-wing social policy she champions? I'm not holding my breath.