Sarah Palin's Personal Business

Sarah Palin's teenage daughter is unmarried and pregnant, and the Republican party is outraged at the media's "intrusive" coverage of Governor Palin's personal life. The Republican's contend that Bristol Palin, the governor's daughter, should be off-limits as a topic for the news media, but it is the Republicans who have invited the media scrutiny.

For decades the Republican party has courted "social conservatives" and have amended their party's platform to accomodate this group. Republicans feel that the degredation of the traditional American family is the source of many of the country's current ills. Republicans, lead by President Bush, have used tax-payer money to fund a wide range of conservative social issues such as abstinence education in public schools and a broad spectrum of "faith based initiatives."

It is then only logical to question whether Palin's family adheres to this social conservative viewpoint. Afterall, tax-payer money is being used to provide "values" education to Americans and no person should exemplify these values more than the person who will have the power to implement them.

One may argue that the candidate's families are innocent and should not be subject to the same intense media scutiny. This would be true only if the candidates did not make families a government issue. It is also true that all Americans, including the candidate's families, are hurt by the use of tax-payer money to fund subjective "values" or "moral" education.

One could argue that the candidate's family is hurt more by the policy than by the media scrutiny. No one, Republican or Democrat, should be allowed to propose and implement such a policy (wholly inconsistent with at least the spirit of the Constitution I might add) and be free from criticism. Then, perhaps, candidates would think twice before attempting to legislate values.