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blue bits. red rocks.
Friday 31 October 2008

But there’s another kind of culture war that is much more to the point of Governor Palin’s candidacy, and that is the mutual disdain between what you might call heartland culture and coastal culture—or populism and cosmopolitanism. The way both sides have played up this conflict has been shameful and exploitative. It really has nothing to do with the serious issues at stake and the important conversations we need to have about supporting women faced with an unexpected pregnancy, holding men accountable for the support and nurture of the children they father, strengthening couples trying to stay married in an environment that offers almost no cultural support for the fantastically difficult project of lifelong fidelity, and protecting marriage while guarding the civil rights of people who find themselves with all kinds of sexual orientations and gender identities that don’t fit neatly into normative societal categories or accord with Christian convictions. The most disappointing thing about Governor Palin, who certainly seems to be an honorable person in many respects, is how ill-equipped she seems to be to foster anything other than a knee-jerk, g-droppin’ invocation of mutual stereotypes. Andy Crouch

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