Saint Sarah - To white evangelical women, Sarah Palin is a modern-day prophet

RamboLiberal

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Fri Jun-11-10 01:30 PM
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Saint Sarah - To white evangelical women, Sarah Palin is a modern-day prophet

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To millions of women, Palin�s authenticity makes her a sister in arms��Sisters!� she called out in Washington, as if at a revival�a beautiful, fearless, principled fighter who shares their struggles. To a smaller number, she is a prophet, ordained by God for a special role in the cosmic battle against the forces of evil. A 2009 profile in the Christian magazine Charisma compared Palin to the Old Testament�s Queen Esther, who saved her people, in this case the Jews, from annihilation.

Palin has been antagonizing women on the left of late by describing herself as a �feminist,� a word she uses to mean the righteous, Mama Bear anger that wells up when one of her children is attacked in the press or her values are brought into question. But while leftist critics continue to shred Palin as a cynical, shallow, ill-informed opportunist, and new polls show her unpopularity rating to be at an all-time high�53 percent�Palin is now playing to her strengths. Even if she never again seeks elected office, her pro-woman rallying cry, articulated in the evangelical vernacular, together with the potent pro-life example of her own family, puts Palin in a position to reshape and reinvigorate the religious right, one of the most powerful forces in American politics. The Christian right is now poised to become a women�s movement�and Sarah Palin is its earthy Jerry Falwell.

Already Palin has shown herself to be a kingmaker (as well as a queenmaker). Two of her fellow �mama grizzlies,� as she calls them�Carly Fiorina, the Senate candidate in California, and Nikki Haley, the gubernatorial candidate in South Carolina�benefited from her endorsements last week, winning and placing first in their races, respectively. (Haley�s triumph is especially remarkable since her campaign was beset by last-minute allegations of marital infidelity, which she denied.) �She is going to be able to raise a lot of money for people she wants to support, and she will make a big difference in the primaries,� says Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention�s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

Abortion, the cause around which the religious right was built two generations ago, seems to be reemerging as a potent political issue as well (though the oil spill, terrorism, and the global economy may still overshadow it in the voting booth). Eleven states have passed anti-abortion laws since the beginning of the year, and 370 bills have been introduced in state legislatures, according to the Guttmacher Institute. American women are more likely to call themselves �pro-life� (48 percent, up from 42 percent in 2001, according to Gallup), and while young white evangelicals are more accepting than their parents of gay marriage, they�re less open-minded on abortion. Seventy percent want more restrictions, compared with compared with 55 percent of those in the older generation, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/11/saint-sarah.html