WASHINGTON (AP)
Sep 4 2008, 9:52 AM |
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Rep. Barney Frank is among the first Democrats to publicly say
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s family background, including the pregnancy of
her unwed teenage daughter, should be fair game for campaign discussion.
"They’re the ones that made an issue of her family," Frank, D-Mass.,
said Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
Republicans stressed Palin’s conservative family values in
announcing her selection as John McCain’s running mate on Friday. Frank
says the recent disclosure about her daughter blunts conservative
claims that liberalism harms family life.
Apparently she’s a great favorite with the conservative social
movement," Frank said. "They have said that it’s liberalism and
liberals who have undermined families — same-sex marriage has been a
problem, they don’t want gay people to adopt ... This helps undercut
those arguments."
Revelations about Palin’s 17-year-old daughter’s out-of-wedlock
pregnancy and other family troubles reflect the stresses and strains of
modern everyday life more than anything else, said Frank.
"Well, hers is a family in great turmoil," added Frank. "She fired
the state police commissioner because he wouldn’t fire her sister’s
ex-husband. She has a daughter who became pregnant. That’s not her
fault."
The Alaska governor faces accusations of firing public safety
commissioner Walt Monegan because he would not fire her former
brother-in-law as a state trooper, in what amounts to a messy Palin
family drama dating to her pre-gubernatorial days.
In addition, the McCain campaign also disclosed that Palin’s
husband, Todd, then age 22, was arrested in 1986 in Alaska for driving
under the influence of alcohol.
The campaign of Democratic presidential nominee has strictly avoided
any comment on issues related to Palin’s family, specifically anything
focused on her daughter’s out-of wedlock pregnancy.
"I think people’s families are off limits and people’s children are especially off limits," Obama said Monday.
Frank, one of two openly gay members of Congress and a prominent
voice on gay rights, has himself faced political pressures relating to
private life. In 1990, he was reprimanded by the House for using his
influence on behalf of a male prostitute. Shortly afterward, Frank told
a constituents’ meeting he did not handle the pressures of being a
closeted gay man in public life. He has won re-election ever since.
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