The Washington Post reported this week that Vice President Mike Pence does not eat meals alone with women who are not his wife. Nor does he attend events where alcohol is served without her company.
Since the revelation of that information, the Pences’ marriage has been roundly mocked and disparaged by those who see their religious adherence as, at best, comically outdated, and, at worse, sexist.
There is much to be made of our collective reaction to this new detail about the vice president’s personal life. The reflexive disgust it triggered among progressives does seem to expose the cultural gulf that separates coastal urbanites from Middle America. It is one thing to disagree with Pence’s choice, it is another to treat it as an exotic artifact of traditional societies long since extinct. The latter criticism would likely not emanate from many people who live, for instance, in the suburbs of Raleigh or Pittsburgh.
Pence’s rule is certainly unusual in today’s world, but conservative Christians like his family still exist in the United States and, in fact, are common in some of the regions that showed up at the polls to vote him into office last year.
As many of the same coastal urbanites who are now piling on the Pences spent the winter digesting November’s electoral surprise, they pledged to work at better understanding Trump’s base of support.
Executive Editor of the New York Times Dean Baquet told NPR, “I think that the New York-based and Washington-based too probably, media powerhouses don’t quite get religion. We have a fabulous religion writer, but she’s all alone. We don’t get religion. We don’t get the role of religion in people’s lives. And I think we can do much, much better.”
The opportunity to do better has arrived.
Perhaps Pence’s critics should use this conversation as an opportunity to understand and empathize with evangelical Midwesterners, a task in line with Baquet’s warmly-received reflection, rather than mock and condemn them.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
