Wednesday, Jul. 01, 2009

Hundreds 'Stand with Jenny': 'Her story has inspired us'

An online campaign to “Stand with Jenny” Sanford is drawing hundreds of S.C. women.

The campaign by the conservative, faith-based Palmetto Family Council hails the first lady for her “strength, her courage, her commitment to her family, and her example” as she deals with her husband’s public infidelity.

By Tuesday afternoon, more than 700 had clicked on the petition at www.palmettofamily.org — with roughly 100 responses added that day.

“I would say our response rate to this e-mail campaign is the highest response rate on any e-mail we have ever done,” said Family Council executive director Oran Smith. “It’s just off the charts.”

With Gov. Mark Sanford’s confession to more liaisons with Maria Belen Chapur of Argentina and dalliances with other women that stopped just shy of sex, Smith added, “I should send out another e-mail saying, ’Stand up even more for Jenny.’”

The growing demand prompted the council, a nonprofit loosely affiliated with James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, to establish a second e-mail, standwithjenny@palmettofamily.org, for people simply to send the first lady a note of encouragement.

“We just had so many people who wanted to tell their story,” Smith said, including some who had experienced infidelity and healed their marriages and others who gave up on the unions.

Smith said he realized women needed a place to vent after the governor’s June 22 news conference where he revealed he had met Chapur in Argentina.

Jenny Sanford issued a statement afterward saying she was willing to forgive and work to repair the marriage, but sought separation to “maintain my dignity, self-respect and my basic sense of right and wrong” for their four children.

The fallout was immediate, Smith said.

His organization began receiving e-mails like this: “Thank God for women like Jennie(sp) Sanford. She has my prayers and concern as do the children who must be very hurt right now. Jennie has carried a heavy burden, and yet, she offers forgiveness that her husband does not deserve.”

And this: “Excuse me, I do not feel that South Carolina should be viewed as a personal growth schoolroom for Sanford’s development as a ‘Christian.’”

Another urged the governor, who compared himself to King David, to “go and read your Bible again and see the consequences that King David, King Solomon and Moses had to endure because they, like you, made foolish choices and God forgave them but they still had to suffer the consequences.”

The shattering of trust stunned many women, said Cindy Mosteller, Charleston County Republican leader and Sanford appointee to the S.C. Commission on Higher Education.

“The distance he was willing to go to accomplish what he wanted to do, it is just incomprehensible to us,” she said.

Mosteller, whose brother state Sen. Chip Campsen and family are close personal friends of the Sanfords, said focusing on the family has been therapeutic.

“As much as his story has disturbed us, her story has inspired us,” said Mosteller, who has drummed up Lowcountry support for the petition.

Smith said he planned to hand-deliver the electronic messages of support to Jenny Sanford. Efforts to reach Jenny Sanford were unsuccessful Tuesday.

Reach Click at (803) 771-8386.

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