In light of his recent support for gay marriage, President Barack Obama has been called a flip-flopper, an evolver, a hesitator. Newsweek is honoring Obama’s statements on its cover, featuring a dramatic picture of the president with a rainbow halo around his head and the statement “Our First Gay President.” And because of the historical nature of Obama’s decision to (finally) back gay marriage, political pundits from both the right and left are stepping up on their soapboxes to shine a light on Obama’s decision. Seasoned political reporters from the New York Times to the Washington Post to the Christian Science Monitor have all weighed in — and so has Bristol Palin.

Some may remember Bristol Palin from her momma’s disastrous first stint with big girl politics, when she single-handedly helped John McCain lose the 2008 election. Others may remember her through Levi Johnston, her baby daddy who, despite impregnating Palin and tattooing her name on his ring finger, ditched her to become a model and an actor in Hollywood. 

In any case, Palin responded to Obama’s decision to change his stance of same sex marriage on the religious blog Patheos.com, stating that in general, children grow up better in a household with both a mother and a father. Of course, the first response to this frankly narrow-minded statement is that Bristol Palin is a gigantic hypocrite. A single mother at 17, abandoned by her douchey baby daddy — what gives her the right to open her big Alaskan mouth and say these things? And people, from the thousands of comments that her blog post has already garnered, to JWOWW, the perennially orange one from the cast of Jersey Shore, have all responded in kind. 

But the thing is, Palin has responded to these comments about her hypocrisy. 

And dare I say it — she makes a good point:

 “I find it strange that the culture rightfully applauds former drug addicts who warn children of the dangers of drug use. They are happy to listen to former alcoholics talk about how they finally are living a clean life. But when it comes to me talking about waiting until marriage for sex, it’s almost like people want me to slink away in shame…unable to show my face in public again because of my past mistakes.”

I may not agree with Palin’s view on mixed-sex marriage or her mother’s views on, well, anything. But she’s right — blindly attacking Palin for being a hypocrite is like criticizing a smoker turned lung cancer patient for talking about the dangers of smoking. Perhaps we were the hypocrites after all.

That being said, Obama’s support of gay marriage, though a bit late and could only have happened with Biden’s prior statements, was a huge and historic event. I support it.