Sen. John McCain's vice presidential running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said Monday that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant, but delegates at the Republican National Convention welcomed the news because the girl has said she will keep the baby.

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"It's something a lot of families go through," said delegate and Pennsylvania state Rep. John Evans, while praising Bristol Palin's announced decision to keep the baby and marry the child's father. He also described the pregnancy as a private family matter, adding that he hoped the news media would see it that way, too.

The baby is due in late December.

"Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents," Sarah and Todd Palin said in the brief statement.

The disclosure of the pregnancy came on the opening day of the Republican National Convention, scaled back because of Hurricane Gustav, and three days after McCain named Palin as his running mate.

Delegates interviewed between floor sessions at the convention said they were unfazed by news of the pregnancy, and cheered McCain's choice for a running mate.

Georgia delegate Peggy Henderson described Palin as a wonderful role model and qualified candidate who has "made more decisions in a day than a senator makes in a year." And she dismissed suggestions that voters might see a contradiction between the family values espoused in the Republican platform and the fact that Palin's teen daughter became pregnant out of wedlock.

Bristol Palin "made her choice," Henderson said. "She said, 'Oh my gosh, I made a mistake,' but she's not going to throw the baby away."

And while Republican and Democratic women may not agree on every issue, Palin may attract some women to the Republican ticket who might have supported Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton "for being the strong woman that she is," Henderson said.

Texas delegate Larry Jones said he thought Barack Obama's years in the Illinois state house and then the U.S. Senate represented no better experience than Palin's stint as a mayor of a small town in Alaska and 18 months as the state's governor.

Her selection "amplifies experience as an issue," Jones said. "John McCain doesn't need someone with foreign policy experience" on the ticket.

On the other hand, Palin's sudden arrival in the national spotlight should tell voters that McCain is more interested than Obama in real change in Washington, said Michigan delegate Troy Rolling, pointing to Obama's selection of veteran U.S. Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate.

Obama's not about change," Rolling said. "Biden's not about change."

And he echoed other delegates' sentiments when he said that Palin's daughter's pregnancy was something every American faily could probably relate to.

"The family is human," Rolling said.

Prominent religious conservatives, many of whom have been lukewarm toward McCain's candidacy, predicted that Palin's daughter's pregnancy would not diminish conservative Christian enthusiasm over the vice presidential hopeful.

"I think it's a very private matter," said Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America. "It's a matter that should stay in the family and they have to work through it together. My prayers go out to them."

"We're excited about the governor and think she's going to do well," Combs said.

Mathew Staver, dean of Liberty University School of Law, said: "We're all sinners."

"We all make mistakes. Certainly, the ideal is not to get pregnant out of wedlock. But she made the right decision after her mistake," he said.

Staver also criticized anyone who would seek to make the Bristol Palin news a negative campaign issue.

"It's absolutely shameful to put her child in the spotlight. She's not running for office," he said.

McCain's Democratic rival, Barack Obama, also weighed in on the matter, saying he thinks "people's families are off limits and people's children are especially off limits."

Sarah Palin's fifth child, a son named Trig, was born in April with Down syndrome. Internet bloggers have been suggesting that the child was actually born to Bristol Palin but that her mother, the 44-year-old Alaska governor, claimed to be the mother.

Palin spokesman Bill McAllister emphatically denied those rumors, and McCain adviser Mark Salter said the campaign announced the daughter's pregnancy to rebut them.

"Senator McCain's view is this is a private family matter. As parents, (the Palins) love their daughter unconditionally and are going to support their daughter," said McCain spokesman Steve Schmidt.

"Life happens," he said.

The advisers said Palin told them about the pregnancy during lengthy discussions about her background. At several points during the discussions, McCain's team warned Palin that the scrutiny into her private life would be intense and that there was nothing she could do to prepare for it.