Palin causes a Gender Bender

Over at USA Today, David Gushe writes about the implicit tension in conservative evangelical endorsement of Palin. Many of these conservative evangelicals hold a complementarian position on prohibiting women from pastoral ministry, the deaconate, and from preaching and teaching in the preence of men, and yet these same evangelicals also resonate with Palin who largely represents their religious values on family and faith. How can they endorse a female President he asks? Now this raises issue about church-state relationships and do different rules hold out for different domains of authority, i.e. the secular state and the Christian Church. I do not presuppose the perspective of Gushe, but I do have to ask how do you endorse Palin if: (1) You believe that a women's primary responsibility is in the home and women should not work outside the home (as Dorothy Patterson stated in an interview here). (2) If you believe that it is wicked for a woman to be the leader of a nation? (Paige Patterson is reported to have said this during his examination as a witness in the Sheri Klouda case. A transcript is available here, see the last question where he answered, "The Bible does say in the Book of Isaiah, that it is something of an indication of a wicked society when women rule over them" - if this is incorrect someone please tell me and I'll remove the apparent quote). Can Mr. and Mrs. Patterson vote for Sarah Palin as a consistent expression of their views on the place of women (of course it could be worse, she could be a Calvinist)?

For a response to Gushe see Denny Burke's short post, David Kotter offers comments on this subject at CBWM, and let me say that my wife is essentially a stay at home mother who works in a craftshop on Saturdays!