Another Palin Pregnancy and James Dobson's Prayers

Sarah Palin announced today that her seventeen year old daughter Bristol is five months pregnant, will be keeping the baby, and marrying Levi, the baby's father. I'm not sure how the Christian right will respond to this, but it seems as if it's okay. The sin of fornication - is trumped by (i) not using birth control; and (ii) the decision to keep the baby. That's 2 to 1 in favor of God. It's unfortunate that the personal life of a teenage girl who desperately needs her privacy right now will be in the media spotlight and a political target, but this is not about judgment of the child, but the inconsistency of the parent, similar to Dick Cheney's support and participation in a blatantly anti-gay rights government despite his daughter's open lesbian relationship. Whether it's made a political issue or not, it will still play significantly in the minds of voters.

Either way, the Obama camp has refrained from attacking either mother or daughter on anything so far, and are focusing on McCain. In the spirit of staying above the fray, Obama has put out the following statement:

"I have said before and I will repeat again: People's families are off limits. And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18 and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be a topic of our politics."

Second, evangelist James Dobson, chairman of the board of Focus on the Family (who recently let go about his reservations about John McCain and decided to embrace his candidacy after his choice of Sarah Pralin last week), backed Focus on the Family's Stuart Shepard as Shepard asked millions of evangelical Christians to pray for rain "of Biblical proportions" during Barack Obama's historic open air speech at Invesco Field in Denver last week. "I'm talking 'umbrella-ain't-going-to-help-you' rain," the pastor cried, standing in front of Invesco Field himself in a YouTube video.

As Hurricane Gustav continues to devastate the Gulf today, it seems as if God heard Shepard and James Dobson's prayers a few days too late. God seems instead to have gone after the Republican convention instead. Today, on the first day of the Republican National Convention, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal have canceled their appearances and the McCain camp has been forced to make drastic adjustments to the tone and agenda of the convention.

I haven't been able to figure out yet whether this will be good for McCain or not. But it doesn't seem as if God has chosen McCain like he chose George W. Bush.