From ABC News (Retrieved on 27/01/2011)

The virgin politician: Abbott’s telling honesty

Updated January 27, 2010 11:57:00

It hardly seems odd that a father of three recently adult, and undeniably, ah, photogenic daughters would have reasonably well-formed views on the looming possibility (if not established fact) of their sex lives.

Maybe the introduction of marriage as a determining point in their sexual readiness might ring a little strangely for some. But then we know the father in question is a devout and committed Catholic, a group that traditionally sees sex as a purely post-matrimonial and fundamentally procreative distraction.

We are talking of course about Tony Abbott, the man described by commentator Guy Rundle as Cardinal George Pell’s representative on earth. This is amusing. Much of what has been said in response to Abbott’s profile in the current issue of Women’s Weekly is somewhat less comically adroit. Much of it pretty much fails to even qualify as politically subtle.

Take deputy prime minister Julia Gillard, for example. “These comments will confirm the worst fears of Australian women about Tony Abbott,” she said at the weekend. “Australian women don’t want to be told what to do by Tony Abbott.”

Which right at the off is a pretty broad misrepresentation of what Abbott said. “Sex before marriage?” was the blunt lets-just-run-through-the-controversial-topics question asked by Weekly editor-in-chief Helen McCabe at the tail of a long and only gently probing profile.

“It happens,” Abbott conceded. He presumably chose his next words and the scope of their advisory embrace with care, “I would say to my daughters, if they were to ask me this question, I would say … it is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don’t give it to someone lightly that is what I would say.”

Marriage doesn’t even get a look in, the view being rather that virginity is for life not just for Christmas. The quote rings true as the honest, feeling advice from a father to his daughters, advice that not many parents would find fundamental fault with. Nor is Abbott attempting for a moment to draw a longer bow, to instruct, even by example, “Australian women”. The air of instruction here would seem to be Gillard’s more than Abbott’s.

Abbott’s thoughts have been eagerly extrapolated into what will become an increasingly fevered election year discussion. The government senses opportunity in Abbott’s readily declared social conservatism. They sense that he may put many female voters offside with his views on sex, abortion and contraception, all of which are pretty Vatican-issue.

Truth is that patterns of female voting may be a strong factor in this year’s poll, and so perceived points of female advantage will get a big run from Labor; never mind that the Prime Minister’s views on the likes of sex before marriage as just as likely to be informed by Christian conviction – not to mention parenthood – as are Tony Abbott’s. The fact is that a Liberal-friendly female vote was a fundamental factor in the enduring appeal of the Howard Government. It is a vote that has drifted leftward since the Rudd election of 2007.

That said, appealing to this group of voters may be more complex than simply mouthing the sort of platitudinous and doctrinaire response that Gillard came up with at the weekend.

It may be that his conservatism might not matter so much … the fact that Abbott speaks personal truths with candour could be more telling in an electorate leery of seemingly intractable political cynicism.

It’s telling that Labor hardheads seem to sense that this honesty could be Abbott’s Achilles heel. There’s every chance that quite to the contrary, it could become the secret of his allure.

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I applaud for Tony Abbott to stand up as a father and Christian in raising the critical issue of abstinence. However, he is also a hypocrite, as he did not observe himself during his teenage years. (News Article)