[Mrs. Don-o]

The USCCB is still repeating, every single time they address the anti-conscience "Contraception" mandate, that "This is not about contraception!"

Now I understand that this is true in a certain, limited way:

• It's not about trying to outlaw contraceptives, or even restrict access to contraceptives. Contraceptives are everywhere, and cheap. They could hardly be more "accessible" if they were in every bag of M&M's in America.
• Legally, the federal lawsuits are not "about" contraception, but "about" the First Amendment's Free Exercise clause, and government's attempt to shrink the church-conscience exemptions to the size of a noose; and
• tactically, if you're blowing the bugle to gather Evangelical and other non-Catholic allies, the bugle-call you use isn't "Stop Contraception," it's "Save Liberty."

But.

Un-be-fliuppin-lievable, it IS about contraception if you want to talk about the substantive content of the thing, and frankly, it is far more important that the Church teach against contraception, than that the Church should retain its institutional liberty.

Because what is institutional liberty for, if not the freedom to teach the truth with the full expectation that Catholic people will LIVE the truth?

We had a Religious Liberty here a month ago. One of our speakers, a fine young female Evangelical lawyer with the ADF, made the point that you can't expect people to defend your "liberty" if you don't care enough to live it.

Hammer, nail.

[Tax-chick]

... what is institutional liberty for, if not the freedom to teach the truth with the full expectation that Catholic people will LIVE the truth?

As so often happens, Mrs. Don-o nails it to the wall and sticks a smiley post-it on there for emphasis.

I've been reading this thread, though I haven't responded before now, because the adjective "diabolical" is absolutely key, in my opinion. The belief that drives the call for contraception is that God made us wrong, that He is not a loving Father who wants only our good, but a tyrant who wishes to deny us what is for our good. You'll recall that fallen Seraph - who has done so much harm to innocent ophidians over the millenia - making this point to ditzy Eve.

The Supreme Court has written "God made us wrong" into the fundamental laws of our country: the "Casey" decision said that nonprocreative sex is an absolute right, and that any means necessary to ensure it is protected by "the Constitution" as presently understood.

I'm open to argument/correction on this, but it also seems to me that this is an attack directed mainly at women. Of course, reason tells us that if women were created wrong, so were men, but it is women who become pregnant and have babies. These outcomes, defined as medical and social pathologies by our government, simply don't happen to men. I wonder if the fact that most women spend nearly their entire lives in an environment of "There's something wrong with you. You are a problem. Your existence in your natural state is an enemy to be fought againt," has anything to do with the depression, lack of self-respect, and destructive choices that are so common for women these days.