At Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner dismisses the possibility that, with Sarah Palin as its leader, the Christian right could become a women’s movement:

I’ve been writing about Sarah Palin since the moment the Council for National Policy blessed John McCain’s selection of her as his running mate. And there’s no question: her cred with the religious right is enhanced by being a woman. But that won’t make her the movement’s new leader—precisely because she is a woman.

Meanwhile, at Newsweek, Lisa Miller writes, “The Christian right is now poised to become a women’s movement—and Sarah Palin is its earthy Jerry Falwell:”

That’s a major prediction, and not one that is suggested either by the past or the present. In some ways, the Christian right has always been a movement about women — about what their role is in the family, in the church, and in the culture. That doesn’t make it a women’s movement, and that doesn’t make Palin its leader. The movement’s original sin, if you will, is that it is entirely predicated on the idea that America is a Christian nation and must be guided by biblical principles. And those biblical principles, as defined by the Christian right, preclude things like women’s free agency — choosing when and if to have children, choosing to enter ministry, choosing not to submit to her husband’s spiritual authority, or choosing not to get married and have children at all.

Read the full Religion Dispatches article here and the Newsweek article here.