And the Church allows non-NFP birth control in some situations already, and has allowed it in the past for non-married people. Why all these johnny-come-latelys are freaking out over this, I don’t know. It’s just not that new a concept.

But the usual holier-than-thous, who don’t have a clue as to Church history, about the rules of double effect, about the cultural and social histories of the areas this latest problem affects, will start judging and pontificating and assuming and will have pretty much sent everyone to hell in about five minutes flat.

Thanks to whoever forwarded me that sleazy Tony’s blog post about me. Perhaps he and his little friend, “Amy G.” should have asked me what my situation was first before they jumped to a bunch of conclusions. What’s really hilarious is that Amy G. then goes on to make a blog post on her blog about how she, as a superextradoubleholy Catholic, shouldn’t judge. Funny how fast she judged me and my marriage when she was playing the gossip game with her friend, Tony.

Whatever it is they have, I definitely don’ t want it, thank you very much. And if turning people into judgmental, assuming busybodies is what NFP has done for them, then that doesn’t say much for NFP as an instrument of marital bliss. Happy people don’t usually need to run around slamming other people’s marriages based on assumed information and then go gossiping it to their blog friends.

Ugh. What a group of nasty, dirty-minded people they are.

I didn’t mean to comment on Jill’s religion and I’m sorry if it came across that way. My point was that the critcism in Jill’s post was from an outsider perspective in that it didn’t deal with the relevant theology. For all I know, the progressives within the Church are right but if you want to make a case for that, you have to do it from Catholicism itself.

Also, Matan, you took my analogy to Judaism way too far. You’re right that Halakhah (Jewish law) functions very differently in more ways than I can list here. My point wasn’t to compare the two. I prefaced my comment by mentioning my Judaism because I’m offended when a similar outsider attack is made against particular halakhic positions.

I understood what you were saying. This is what I’m saying: It is highly possible to challenge Halakhah. It is very very difficult to challenge Catholic dogma (is this the right word?) because, unless changes are made at the top, such changes would not be official. Within Judaism, one can form a new movement or a community with a reformulated halakhah and still consider oneself Jewish (even if some other Jews would consider such a movement transgressive). You can only do this in a non-hierarchically organized religion.

Thanks for the correction on ketubot. I was mixing up a couple of things–mostly the alimony and the mohar, the price traditionally paid by the groom to the father of the bride. The essential point I was trying to make was to contrast the options possible within Judaism (for example, look at Rachel Adler’s Brit Ahuvim/Ahuvot, Lovers’ Covenant at http://artketubah.com/Ketubah/ketubah_text_samesex.shtml#brit) with, say the Sacraments in Catholicism, which seem to my untutored eye, to be much more rigid.

First, you should know that Jill is (was? I don’t remember) Catholic, so your implication that she’s passing judgement as an outsider is off. I do think this is relevant.

I didn’t mean to comment on Jill’s religion and I’m sorry if it came across that way. My point was that the critcism in Jill’s post was from an outsider perspective in that it didn’t deal with the relevant theology. For all I know, the progressives within the Church are right but if you want to make a case for that, you have to do it from Catholicism itself.

Also, Matan, you took my analogy to Judaism way too far. You’re right that Halakhah (Jewish law) functions very differently in more ways than I can list here. My point wasn’t to compare the two. I prefaced my comment by mentioning my Judaism because I’m offended when a similar outsider attack is made against particular halakhic positions.

But since you brought it up… a ketubah isn’t a marriage contract, it’s a prenuptual agreement dealing with alimony (yes, the Talmud has provisions for alimony) and has nothing to do with “purchasing” a bride.

I’m going to defend the Church here because, as a religious Jew, I know how annoying and offensive it is when somebody passes judgement on a religious tradition without any regard for the theological ideas underlying it. The case here is a conflict between two values that the Church espouses: the sanctity of marriage on one hand and disease prevention on the other. So is a change of policy justified? What are the mechanisms for change in the Church? What principles have previous popes appealed to in order to justify innovation? When was the Church’s position on birth-control first articulated and what was the justification? Does it still apply

This here is a perfect example of why traditionalist, hierarchical, top-down religion is bad. And yes, i know that of which i speak, as i’m a lapsed Southern Baptist.

Silly Marian, don’t you know it didn’t become an issue until the numbers of brown people started gaining on the numbers of white people? The natalists are concerned only about white women breeding; they’d rather the brown women just stopped.

Well Marian is in quite a pickle, then. What’s a white lady with a brown husband to do??

Silly Marian, don’t you know it didn’t become an issue until the numbers of brown people started gaining on the numbers of white people? The natalists are concerned only about white women breeding; they’d rather the brown women just stopped.

Oh, right. I forgot.

And maybe I was too young to notice it if it did happen, but I haven’t noticed the idea of conception and big families being a political issue until fairly recently (read: the last 5 years or so). I don’t recall articles in the 80’s and early 90’s telling us that the population is fast declining, and if we don’t get out there and have 4,5, children apiece by age 25, that the wrong kinds of people will take over the country. Or, non-Catholics writing opinion columns about how contraception “destroys” society.

Silly Marian, don’t you know it didn’t become an issue until the numbers of brown people started gaining on the numbers of white people? The natalists are concerned only about white women breeding; they’d rather the brown women just stopped.

PHLAF, yeah, I understand that there are caveats. But the point remains that this wasn’t even considered an automatically-excommunicable offense until very recently.