{"id":757,"date":"2009-03-12T11:43:40","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T11:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/03\/bristol-palin-levi-johnston-br.html"},"modified":"2009-03-12T11:43:40","modified_gmt":"2009-03-12T11:43:40","slug":"bristol-palin-levi-johnston-br","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/03\/bristol-palin-levi-johnston-br.html","title":{"rendered":"Bristol Palin & Levi Johnston Break Up — “It Kind of Just Happened”"},"content":{"rendered":"

“It kind of just happened,” a source close to the couple told PEOPLE.<\/a> “I thought they would stick it out. But I think they can work together to raise Tripp.”
\nWhen Sarah Palin announced the pregnancy of her daughter, she made a point of mentioning in the same breath that they would be married. “Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family.” They had Levi Johnston attend the Republican convention to show how they were going to make a real family of it.
\nIn October, Levi declared<\/a>, “We both want to marry each other. And that’s what we are going to do.” He talked about a Summer wedding. The McCain campaign apparently was rooting for a pre-election day wedding. <\/a> “It would be fantastic,” a “McCain insider told the Times of London. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”
\nIn February, Bristol told Greta Van Sustern they were looking forward to getting married.
\nAnd yet here we are just few months later, and they’re splitting up.
\nLevi’s sister explained,<\/a> “Levi tries to visit Tripp every single day, but Bristol makes it nearly impossible for him. She tells him he can’t take the baby to our house because she doesn’t want him around ‘white trash.'”
\nSo many questions. Of course I’m interested to see how religious conservatives who have focused so hard on the sanctity of marriage will handle this.
\nBut I hope this triggers a debate about a few other questions:
\n1) What is the obligation of a couple to try to make a marriage or a relationship work? I’m dying to know: did Sarah Palin require that they get marriage counseling before breaking up?
\n2) If a mother chooses to carry a baby to term, under what circumstances should she consider putting him up for adoption?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“It kind of just happened,” a source close to the couple told PEOPLE. “I thought they would stick it out. But I think they can work together to raise Tripp.” When Sarah Palin announced the pregnancy of her daughter, she made a point of mentioning in the same breath that they would be married. “Bristol…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nBristol Palin & Levi Johnston Break Up - "It Kind of Just Happened" - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/03\/bristol-palin-levi-johnston-br.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bristol Palin & Levi Johnston Break Up - "It Kind of Just Happened" - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"“It kind of just happened,” a source close to the couple told PEOPLE. “I thought they would stick it out. But I think they can work together to raise Tripp.” When Sarah Palin announced the pregnancy of her daughter, she made a point of mentioning in the same breath that they would be married. “Bristol…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/03\/bristol-palin-levi-johnston-br.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-03-12T11:43:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Bristol Palin & Levi Johnston Break Up - \"It Kind of Just Happened\" - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/03\/bristol-palin-levi-johnston-br.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Bristol Palin & Levi Johnston Break Up - \"It Kind of Just Happened\" - Steven Waldman","og_description":"“It kind of just happened,” a source close to the couple told PEOPLE. “I thought they would stick it out. 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