Birth Control?

[GeorgeW]

Yet the same religious organizations that want to ban abortion and force women to give their children up for adoption want to ban gay couples who want to adopt from being able to do so.

 

Recently, I witnessed a court hearing in which two, middle-aged, white, gay men were in the process of adopting a young (sixish) African-American boy. Although the setting was legal, it was a celebration of success. The child was clearly flourishing. Someone said that several months earlier, the child had been a "basket case."

 

George

[GeorgeW]

Politics majors are usually very cynical. We have studied this stuff backwards and forwards, and we realize how impossible it all is.

 

John.

 

Are they teaching in political science now what conservatives "actually care about?" If so, that is interesting. Maybe they should read Haidt's recent book about the psychological basis of morality and/or George Lakoff's "Moral Politics." These both lay out models of the underlying values that motivate worldviews.

 

(Note: For purposes of full disclosure, I am a tax-and-spend, latte-drinking, tree-hugging, Prius-driving, card-carrying Democrat.)

 

P.S.

I checked back in Lakoff's book to see what he says about abortion. He has chapter devoted to it. He says about pro-life conservatives (2002, p. 266), "I do not think such opinions are either irrational or insincere. I think they are natural concomitants of having a conservative worldview, a Strict Father morality." (Strict Father is his conservative model)

 

George

Edited April 18, 2012 by GeorgeW

[JenellYB]

Jenell,

 

I think it is the main-stream churches that have been the ones losing the most membership over recent years.

 

George

 

Your observation may actually support and be consistent with the point I am suggestiing. Less aggressively controlling traditions, in this sense I have raised for consideration, have been in decline for a good while now, perhaps even since the age of reason and modernity got under way, as it has become of decreasing relevance or importance to each new generation whether they had the blessing of and acceptance of a church/church community or not. In the more, perhaps the words is, "genteel" traditions of the mainstream churches, when such simple controls over behaviors and allegiances to the church as 'granting' or 'with holding' right to participate in Communion, threats of excommunication, etc, progressively failed to successfully "hold" people under church control, the path forward into the future began to naturally split in generally two "directions." One, those content to sit where they were, so to speak, shake their heads perhaps at those leaving, to carry on as they always had in their old traditions. In some of those, efforts at response were less about "cracking down" to try to restore control through stonger demands and threats of godly puishment, and more about trying to reach people through offerring love and care as incentive, often hoping to attract and hold through a more positive social community, ie the continued mainstream, and those that reacted toward increased efforts to grab back control, ie toward the fundamentalist bent.

 

The mainstream tendency toward more "genteel" responses, trying to offer a more positive social experience as part of member's lives, has had a poor go of it, I think, for reasons largely related to changes in how people live and interact...our increasingly moblie society, even nomadic and isolated in the sense people more to far flung areas to work and live rather than remianing within inteconnected communties, and dramatic increase in so amny sorts of entertainment and engagement in interesting pursuits of all sorts have provided "competition" to anything people one got from invlovement in a church community.

 

Jenell

[StephInTX]

Hi there...I'm new, and did just post an introduction in the other folder. Figured that would be appropriate before jumping in here. ;-) While I am not Catholic, I think I might be able to shed some light on the Catholic position regarding contraception. My husband and I have dealt with years of infertility, and after the more western approaches to infertility didn't work for us, I wanted to learn an approach that was more natural. I sought out the field of Natural Family Planning, which is the distant (and much more scientifically sound) grandchild of the rhythm method. It was developed by Catholics to be a more reliable avenue than the rhythm method of avoiding pregnancy when there are "grave reasons" to do so (this is decided by each couple, and might include reasons like health concerns in pregnancy, financial difficulties, etc.). The models (there are a number of them) can be used to avoid pregnancy or achieve pregnancy. They all center around increasing awareness of women's natural cycles, and planning intercourse on days that will help the couple conceive or avoid conception, according to their need. The theological basis (per my understanding) is that marital intercourse must be both "unitive and procreative." Modern orthodox Catholics (at least the ones I know) would disagree that sex isn't meant to be pleasurable, but would say that contraception separates those two functions. They believe that barrier methods disrupt both aspects, and hormonal birth control interferes with the procreative aspect as well as potentially causing implantation not to occur after fertilization does (considered an early aborition). This is definitely a very divisive issue even among Catholics who are very serious about their faith, and as someone else said, many Catholics persue sterilization or use some form of birth control even though they are aware of the teaching.

 

My reasons for using NFP are completely secular, but the vast majority of users I know are doing it because of the CC's teachings.

[glintofpewter]

I read an op-ed piece awhile ago which concluded that American democracy is ill-suited for the polarized climate we are in. Unfortunately American democracy does not work well third parties. So power will switch back and forth with each side taking down what the other side put up and unilaterally building their own projects.

 

George has mentioned Haidt's moral foundations and Lakoff's Nurturing Mother and Strict Father construct for understanding the divide. Hazel Markus provides another model: the Independent Self and the Interdependent Self. The "middle class", 27.5% of us who are college graduates, primarily works out of an Independent Model; the Working Class out of Interdependent model. Independents want to stand out because they are equal but better, want to influence the world which is considered welcoming, want to be free, unique. Interdependents perceive a world that is not welcoming, they want to be part of a group (for safety?), want to fit in, rooted, geographically and in their world views, and live in a ranked world where everyone has their place. They will follow the lead of people they perceive to be in authority and who have a conservative (in the traditional sense) worldview.

 

Please don't reply to my notes as representing Ms. Markus views. She can be heard here:

Being Human: Individual + Society & Morals + Culture

http://fora.tv/2012/03/24/Being_Human_Individual__Society__Morals__Culture

 

"There are two kinds of people" constructs are just that, constructs, but they all point to the values and world views that each side works out of. They cannot be ignored if non-polarized solutions are to be found.

 

Dutch

[NORM]

I read an op-ed piece awhile ago which concluded that American democracy is ill-suited for the polarized climate we are in. Unfortunately American democracy does not work well third parties. So power will switch back and forth with each side taking down what the other side put up and unilaterally building their own projects.

 

This may accurately define our current condition, but I think it will come to a head in either violent revolution or an economic collapse that will make the Great Depression seem like paradise.

 

Or, perhaps we will emerge beyond the Talk Show Cable News era before its too late.

 

NORM

[GeorgeW]

The sociobiologist E.O.Wilson has an interesting insight on the issue of birth control. Engaging in sex only for the purpose of reproduction (the Catholic basis for the prohibition), is biologically/evolutionarily maladaptive. He says that the commitment of the the male secured by nonreproductive intercourse is important in many circumstances. It is a means to bind the male in a relationship to help raise children.

 

George