Concerned father Stephen Stewart recently purchased space in Christianity Today to advertise his “virgin” daughter Rachel as the ideal, god-fearing mate. He did not, however, see reason to seek approval from his daughter, or to even let her know.
The advertisement, which disturbingly ran in the magazine’s jobs section, reads as follows:
“Her: godly, gorgeous, athletic, educated, careered, humorous, travelled, bilingual, 26-year-old virgin. You: unworthy, though becoming less so daily.”
According to the Daily Beast, Rachel Stewart took her father’s stunt in good humor—once she learned about it—remarking in a since-deleted blog post: “At least its appropriate they placed it in the Employment Opportunities section because putting up with this father-in-law’s shenanigans is a full time job, without any paid vacation.”
As Daddy Stewart helpfully included the link to Rachel’s blog in his ad “to provide prospective grooms more information on her,” her commenters were thus the ones to sound the alarm.
“I’m just nervous if this doesn’t work out, next I’ll find my face plastered on a billboard,” Rachel wrote. “Oh gosh, now I’m giving him ideas.”
Christianity Today cannot retract the ad—it’s in print—but they have apologized for running it.
Editor-in-chief Mark Galli writes, “We want everything in our magazine to reflect beautiful orthodoxy, and this ad did not...We have taken a hard look at our ad review process, made some changes, and we can assure our readers that no ad like this will appear again.”
However, when confronted by his daughter, Stephen Stewart protested that placing the advertisement was a good move. Accusations of it being both “demeaning and in poor taste” are evidently lost on him. Given the circumstances, are you surprised?
Contact the author at rachel.vorona.cote@jezebel.com.
Image via Getty.