One of the many things I’m grateful for with Obama in the White House is that their daughters are too young to get caught up in this bullshit (yet).

Can you imagine the hell that would have come down if the Clintons had twin late-teen/early-tween daughters who were party girls like the the Bush Twins?

My mind spins at the thought…

I don’t really care if the Bush daughters were/are party animals.  It’s typical enough at that age.  It’s just that we want that to be a sign of hypocrisy, and it’s really not, because class has always worked as a shield in just this way.

You might like to see this CNN item:

“Nearly 40 percent of babies born in the United States in 2007 were delivered by unwed mothers, according to data released last month by the National Center for Health Statistics. The 1.7 million out-of-wedlock births, of 4.3 million total births, marked a more than 25 percent jump from five years before.”

Followed by obligatory, though unsubstantiated, quote that such children face “obstacles” like poverty, greater high school dropout rates etc. etc. Would like to see the figures on that ...

You know, I’m not sure there’s that much of a distinction between the two, except to say that maybe TradCons are *only* concerned with appearances, while religious conservatives obsess over both, but when push comes to shove it still comes down to appearances.

But don’t ask me. Ask any child who was ever abused by a clergyman, especially a Catholic priest.

I think there is a stark line between the two, and you discover which side you fall on when your pristine teenage daughter gets pregnant. What you make her do—-and there’s no doubt for either that you, not she, makes the decision—-determines which camp you belong in, even if you were gray beforehand.

I wonder how many fundies secretly wish that Sarah and Todd Palin and Bristol had “just taken care of it” like daughters of prominent families always did in the days before Roe?

Make no mistake: the anti-choice crowd isn’t just about supressing female reproductive control ... it is also about maintaining the privileges for themselves to keep up appearances.

Test?

I don’t really care if the Bush daughters were/are party animals.  It’s typical enough at that age.  It’s just that we want that to be a sign of hypocrisy, and it’s really not, because class has always worked as a shield in just this way.

That paradigm works very much like the old Roman Catholic practice of indulgences.

Basically, as long as one has the financial means, they are absolved from having to bear any sense of public shame for conduct that is roundly criticized when practiced by the proles.

In their worldview, it’s perfectly normal and acceptable to be a college kid who enjoys drinking, toking, fucking and behaving in a generally hedonistic fashion.  Just as long as it is being subsidized by a trust fund, and not government subsidized student loans and grants.  And you’re white.

There’s two kinds of virginity: “mine” (including immediate family members) which is private and no one’s business except to note that all female family members of mine are upstanding proper ladies, and “everybody else’s” which includes every slutty slut slut in the world who deserves it plus the one or two poor Napoli raped virgins, who despite their innocent intentions, are still soiled goods.

Oh, I had a friend in grammar school who got pregnant in high school.  Her parish priest told her parents to throw her out of the house and shun her and the baby.  She was only 17.

She once tried to visit with the baby.  They wouldn’t open the door. 

Because THAT’S how Jesus wanted people to treat those who are suffering and in need—with spite.

Oh, I had a friend in grammar school who got pregnant in high school.  Her parish priest told her parents to throw her out of the house and shun her and the baby.  She was only 17.

She once tried to visit with the baby.  They wouldn’t open the door.

That’s an extraordinarily appalling story.  I honestly wonder what was going through everyone’s mind there - was their thought?  Or just hate and rage?

Her parish priest told her parents to throw her out of the house and shun her and the baby

Now, there’s somebody who hasn’t spent much time reading the Testament.

I don’t really care if the Bush daughters were/are party animals.  It’s typical enough at that age.  It’s just that we want that to be a sign of hypocrisy, and it’s really not, because class has always worked as a shield in just this way.

Really?  I thought the shield was just partisan protectionism.  The freeps came down pretty hard on Al Gore’s son (and by extension, Gore himself) when the guy was caught (driving, I think) with weed.

southern beale—that’s interesting. i think that they are conflating “single mothers” with “women who give birth without being married”. which is becoming a much larger group, as there is less pressure to get married just because you are knocked up. but you can be parenting with a partner without being married.

of course, all those statistics about “zomg! single mothers!!!” also tend to ignore that some, if not many, of those single mothers will marry or form long-term partnerships at some point during their offspring’s childhood or adolescence. for example, i was not married when my daughters were born, though i was in a common-law relationship with their father. then i got married, though not to him. it does not make sense to me to think of myself as a “single mother” as i have always had a partner in parenting—but to some, i may have qualified.

this is a long way of saying that there is just so much fuzzy thinking on the issue of motherhood, in general, and motherhood that is not patriarchally-mandated/controlled in particular.

Plenty of conservative evangelicals / fundamentalists consider that their abortion is a special case and is justified, or at least can be readily repented and left behind, while everyone else’s is a completely unjustifiable act of selfishness.