Bristol Palin's blog launched a broadside at President Obama on Thursday for his recent personal statement in support of full marriage equality for same-sex couples.
On her blog, the daughter of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin quotes a passage from Obama's statement in which he describes encountering young people who influenced his stance on the issue:
After noting questions from the press to Christian female political candidates about "submission" to their husbands, Bristol's Blog goes for the president's throat:
The blog entry deftly bypasses the college Republicans the president says contributed to his personal re-evaluation, and it does not clarify what society's "thousands of years of thinking about marriage" refers to.
Research has revealed that marriage traditions and family units worldwide and over time have taken a wide range of forms, including same-sex households. During the Bush administration, in fact, the American Anthropological Association issued a statement based on the research of its members that directly contradicts the notion that heterosexual marriage is the exclusive basis of a stable society.
Perhaps Bristol's Blog was referring to the marriage practices of the Mosuo, a matriarchal ethnic group in China in which biological fathers don't rear children and reproduction is unrelated to the institution of marriage?
If that were the case, it would perfectly suit the circumstances of Palin's own life as a single mother whose family reportedly assists in the raising of her child, Tripp. The Palin family has in the past criticized Levi Johnston, the boy's biological father, for not being highly involved in parenting, and Johnston has at times publicly complained of being denied access to the child. Either way, the situation has sometimes sounded very much like a traditional Mosuo arrangement, except with a twice-weekly paternal visitation agreement.
Bristol Palin's blog entry concludes:
Contact Scott Woodham at scott(at)alaskadispatch.com