WASHINGTON (ABP) — Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin described homosexuality as “a choice” while sidestepping policy questions about it and several other divisive social issues in a television interview aired Sept. 30.
But the Alaska governor told Katie Couric of “CBS Evening News” that she is “not going to judge Americans and the decisions that they make in their adult personal relationships.”
“One of my absolute best friends for the last 30 years happens to be gay, and I love her dearly,” Palin said, when asked by Couric about homosexuality. “And she is not my ‘gay friend,’ she is one of my best friends — who happens to have made a choice that isn’t a choice that I have made. But I am not going to judge people.”
Most gay-rights groups criticized GOP nominee John McCain for choosing someone with Palin’s views as his running mate. “For Governor Palin to suggest that individuals randomly choose their sexual orientation based on nothing but a whim is wrong and it repeats the talking points of the anti-gay special interests which continue to control the McCain/Palin campaign and the Republican Party,” said Jon Hoadley, executive director of National Stonewall Democrats, in a statement.
As a candidate for governor in 2006, Palin listed “preserving the definition of marriage as defined in our constitution” as one of her top three legislative priorities. She supported Alaska’s decision to amend its charter to ban same-sex marriage.
She also said, during her gubernatorial campaign, that she disapproved of a recent Alaska Supreme Court ruling that the state had to provide spousal benefits to same-sex partners of government employees.While Palin later signed legislation that enforced the decision, she said at the time that she would support a ballot initiative that would effectively overturn the court ruling by banning gay spouses from state benefits. While she vetoed a legislative attempt to overturn the ruling, she said at the time she was doing so only because attorneys informed her the law would have been unconstitutional.Nonetheless, at least one pro-gay GOP group has expressed support for the Palin choice. Log Cabin Republicans President Patrick Sammon released a statement shortly after McCain picked her Aug. 29, saying Palin is “a mainstream Republican who will unite the party and serve John McCain well as vice president. Gov. Palin is an inclusive Republican who will help Sen. McCain appeal to gay and lesbian voters.”
In the Couric interview, Palin accused the media of misrepresenting her church’s promotion of a Focus on the Family conference designed to help individuals overcome unwanted same-sex attraction through counseling and prayer. When the news of the conference broke a couple of weeks before the interview, some bloggers and other media outlets claimed that Wasilla Bible Church had “sponsored” the conference. In reality, it simply promoted the conference — held in nearby Anchorage — in the church bulletin. Palin attends Wasilla Bible when she is in her hometown.
Palin told Couric that when the media gets it wrong, “It frustrates Americans who are just trying to get the facts and … be able to make up their mind on, about a person’s values.”
“But what you’re talking about, I think, values here, what my position is on homosexuality and you can ‘pray it away,’ because I think that was the title that was listed on that bulletin,” she continued. “And you know, I don’t know what prayers are worthy of being prayed. I don’t know what’s prayers are going to be asked and answered.”
Palin didn’t say much when pressed by Couric on how she would handle public policy related to homosexuality and other hot-button social issues like abortion, global warming and teaching religious theories of the origins of life alongside evolution in public schools.
She reaffirmed her view that human life begins at the moment of conception. Because of that Palin, who described herself as both pro-contraceptive and pro-life, told Couric she personally would not use “morning after” emergency contraceptives, which can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg.
Palin has, in the past, said she opposed all abortions except those performed to save the mother’s life. Asked by Couric if it should be illegal for a 15-year-old raped by her father to get an abortion, Palin said she would “counsel the person to choose life” but added that nobody should “end up in jail” for having an abortion.
As recently as Aug. 29 Palin told the conservative magazine Newsmax she is a pro-life candidate. “I’ll do all I can to see every baby is created with a future and potential,” she said. “The legislature should do all it can to protect human life.”
In the CBS interview Palin also backed away from a statement she made previously suggesting that both evolution and “intelligent design” should be taught in public schools. Asked if she believed evolution should be “taught as an accepted scientific principle or as one of several theories, Palin told Couric it “should be taught as an accepted principle.”
“I won’t deny that I see the hand of God in this beautiful creation that is Earth, but that is not part of the state policy or a local curriculum in a school district,” she said. “Science should be taught in science class.”
Asked during a televised debate two years ago about teaching alternatives to evolution like creationism or intelligent design, Palin responded: “Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.”
Palin later attempted to clarify those remarks, saying she meant there should be no prohibition on debating the issue if it comes up in class, but it didn’t necessarily need to be part of the curriculum.
In the Couric interview, Palin also said she doesn’t know if global warming is induced by humans.
“There are man’s activities that can be contributed to the issues that we’re dealing with now, these impacts,” she said. “I’m not going to solely blame all of man’s activities [for] changes in climate, because the world’s weather patterns are cyclical. And over history we have seen change there. But kind of doesn’t matter at this point, as we debate what caused it. The point is: it’s real; we need to do something about it.”
Palin told CBS News she is not a member of any church, but she visits a couple of them when she is at home.
According to media reports, Palin was baptized a Catholic as an infant but began attending evangelical churches as a child with her mother. She was re-baptized at age 12 into the Wasilla Assembly of God by its then-pastor, Paul Reilly.
She attended there with her family on a regular basis until 2002, about the time she entered public service by running for lieutenant governor, when she switched over to Wasilla Bible Church. Political opponents at the time said she was trying to downplay her upbringing in the Pentecostal tradition, but Palin said the non-denominational church had a better children’s program.
Wasilla Bible’s pastor, Larry Kroons, said Palin and her family have been attending there regularly for about six years. They are “attenders” but not on the membership roll, which he said is not unusual in Alaska.
As governor, Palin has occasionally attended Juneau Christian Center, an Assemblies of God congregation in the capital, when she is there attending to business. Before running for governor she frequently attended another Wasilla church, Church on the Rock, for about a year and has visited a few times since.
What all Palin’s churches share in common, says Howard Bess, a retired American Baptist pastor in nearby Palmer, Alaska, is they are “rock-solid fundamentalist” in their theology.
“Her churches are literalists and into [biblical] inerrancy,” Bess said in a recent e-mail interview.
Bess said he clashed several times over the years with Palin’s allies on local culture-war issues like banning library books.
Bess said he worries how Palin’s “Christian triumphalism” and belief in dispensational views of eschatology might play out on a world stage and has encouraged the media to take a closer look at how her churches’ teachings influence her worldview.
“Sarah is a charming person,” Bess said. “I have always considered her moral and ethical. However, since her nomination, I believe she is shaving truth and rewriting history.”
-30-
— Robert Marus contributed to this story.
Read more
CBS News Palin interview on social issues
Social conservatives express delight at McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin (8/29)