Sarah Palin's Religion Has One Commandment: Worship Sarah Palin

This week, Sarah Palin appeared on Fox News' Bill O'Reilly Show and proclaimed that Judeo-Christian belief was the basis for American law and should continue to be used as a guiding force for creating future legislation. Not too surprising a proclamation, really. However, Sister Sarah went on to urge her listeners/followers, “Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant -- they're quite clear -- that we would create law based on the God of the bible and the ten commandments.” [sic]. You can link to an article here discussing the Palin interview along with video of her appearance.

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Hearing this, I found myself wondering just how well-acquainted Sister Sarah is with the so-called “God of the Bible and the Ten Commandments.” The reason for my concern is that the “God of the Bible and the Ten Commandments,” presumably meaning the God of the Old Testament, takes a fairly grim view of women. This grim view, of course, being relayed to the rest of us by men.

Take, for example, these “laws” from Leviticus:

12:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

12:2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days...

12:5 But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks...

Women are, apparently, unclean after childbirth according to these laws, but a woman is even more unclean if she gives birth to a female child than a male child. Is this the kind of law that should inform our representatives today when they consider legislation?

Giving Sister Sarah the benefit of the doubt, perhaps she had some other part of the Old Testament in mind, maybe this little beauty:

"And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire." Leviticus 21:9.

This punishment seems a bit excessive, doesn't it? Yet, it gives one pause to consider a strange irony. Considering that Sister Sarah is going all about the country touting religion and “faith,” why she is practically lay clergy herself. I wonder how her “God of the Old Testament” views the lay activities of her own daughter, Bristol Palin? Perhaps, there is an as-yet un-canonized book of the Bible applicable to that situation? We can only hope that Sister Sarah will elucidate us if there is.

In the meantime, we should all be alarmed if Sister Sarah meant the following to be a guiding principle for today's lawmakers:

And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, betrothed to an husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her; she shall be scourged; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free. Leviticus 19:20.

In other words, any guy that gets it on with a slave girl engaged to be married (undoubtedly to a male slave) is off the hook for his sexual indiscretions. “Scourge” the poor slave girl, however; i.e., punish or whip her severely. I am curious, is that the rule even if the guy raped her? And, by the way, why is this God of the Old Testament seemingly unmoved by the fact that there is an enslaved girl in the first place?

I grew up in the Bible Belt of the Midwest, surrounded by decent, hard-working, fair-minded people. They weren't all educated, and most of them did not have a lot of letters after their name. But, they generally weren't hypocrites, and most could spot one a mile away. That is precisely what Sarah Palin is – a hypocrite.

Like so many other right-wing Fascists populating our media, Sarah Palin cloaks herself in the robe of religion to advance her own personal agenda. It's a simple agenda, really – empowerment of Sarah Palin at anyone and everyone else's expense. That is what makes her proclamations on the Bill O'Reilly Show so idiotic. In reality, Sarah Palin's “God of the Bible and the Ten Commandments” would relegate her to second-class status, unclean and unfit for any leadership role in society. Her role would be what was dictated to her by men – her father, her husband, and the other men of her community. Forget about the right to appear publicly and speak about any issues of any significance.

It's time to wake up America and say enough of the pseudo-religious hypocrisy spewed by people that, as the elders in my community would have said when I was a boy, “ought to sweep off their own back porch” before dictating what rules and regulations should apply to the rest of us.