The 18-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin, Bristol Palin, has done an interview with Fox’s Greta Van Susteren. In it she says she doesn’t believe abstinence teaching is “realistic.” And she says her mother’s pro-life position didn’t influence her. She said it was her choice to deliver and keep the baby.

Bristol also says she and the child’s father will get married someday, but want to finish school first. Bristol says she wishes she had waited ten years before having a child.

There was a time not that long ago when people were ashamed of having babies out of wedlock. Girls would go away and have the babies in secret usually at a home for such things. They often would place the child for adoption with a two-parent family. No more. We parade sin as if it is just another lifestyle choice and just as valid as getting married before having kids.

Abstinence works for all who try it. Bristol Palin is trying to justify pre-marital sex. She is not the authority I would turn to on anything, much less sex and marriage. Why don’t these people get off the stage and keep quiet?

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.