Posted on 01/03/2012 1:02:05 AM PST by NoPrisoners
“The pleasure is simply there to make reproduction functional.”
I disagree. I think that sexual contact is pleasurable (in part) because it helps a husband and wife form a bond with one another that has no other place in all of society. The two fleshes become one. I think that child rearing portion has nothing to do with the pleasurable portion. Otherwise, one could argue that the pregnant, infertile, or aged should not have sex (you didn’t say that, I’m simply saying that it could be taken to mean that). As long as sex isn’t deviant or harmful in nature (there are some things that, even within marriage, are inappropriate) then it’s fine for a married couple to engage in sex simply to feel close to one another, comfort one another etc., without having children.
Apart from that, I agree with everything you said. And I am not a Catholic, so cannot speak authoritatively on Catholic doctrine, but it is my understanding that according to their theology, there is NO acceptable form of birth control. Someone can correct me if that’s incorrect.
I still support Santorum’s personal conviction. I am not going to tell other married couples when they can and cannot have sex. Having said that, I, too, don’t believe in contraceptives (especially the chemical kind). I think they are an abomination and scourge to society.
“If you don’t want any more kids, then exercise a tiny bit of self-control and make use of the woman’s naturally occurring infertile periods, rather than mutilating yourself chemically or surgically.”
I agree. I have many friends who use chemical contraceptives (which is against their pronounced faith), and it annoys me. I, however, have never lectured them on what they’re doing since they don’t care to listen anyway. I instead like to talk about how wonderful it is to rear a child, and how grateful I am to have the experience. It’s the only way I know to testify without brow beating their personal choice (to which they already have been taught the consequence).
Just about every Christian believed contraception was sinful before the 1930s. Now either God changed his mind or Christianity has some 'splainin to do.
God gave us naturally infertile periods. Nothing wrong with making use of those. But that is not the same as using artificial means to prevent conception.
This the type of thing that will get picked up by the left and used to freak out people on all sides of the political spectrum.
“If you don’t want any more kids, then exercise a tiny bit of self-control and make use of the woman’s naturally occurring infertile periods, rather than mutilating yourself chemically or surgically. “
While you are at it, try not using any medicine, because you are perverting natural events used to thin out the human population and prevent us from living too long. /s
Yep, it will, you are absolutely right. Santorum will be vilified, laughed at, and ridiculed.
But I don’t care at this point. When we get to the stage in society where dimwits are pushing for men to be able to marry other men, it’s clear that shutting up to get along with a bat**** crazy culture is no longer in Christianity’s best interest.
That’s a stupid analogy if I ever heard one.
What the heck is the first plank of the Hippocratic Oath? First *do no harm*. That includes the vas deferens and Fallopian tubes, you know. They aren’t in some special category of organ systems we can feel free to mess up at will.
Contraceptive surgery is in the same category as sex changes: “fixing” something that wasn’t ever broken.
ROFLOL, mutilating yourself. LOL, that is really a good one. LOL, however, your statement is sort of a slap at people who have really been mutilated and scared..
Bingo.
All things are a gift and a blessing from God. However, some are gifted differently.
Senator Santorum ,makes a good, pertinent distinction between killing and preventing the pregnancy in the first place.
You still have to be able to support and raise them. The large litters you speak of tend to be on govt support - something I won't do.
No one on the Left is prepared to have that conversation, however. Their howl will have an opposite effect as more Americans than the Left is are prepared to believe are willing at least to admit this possibility, and without feeling "threatened."
How Santorum "surfs" that issue, and others like it, will say a lot about his ability to communicate Conservatism.
Perhaps he will do well, perhaps not. We will be watching closely, especially if he can prove he has even a fighting chance to win, if polling in Iowa actually means anything.
Now, using the Left's outrage to pierce their default blackout to reach their wider audience (that thinks very differently than the elites) is precisely how Reagan often got his message out.
Santorum's "large" family already offends the Left, by the way. That he makes the Left uncomfortable and defensive can be a very positive thing for him.
So Santorum can prove himself ready for the White House IF he understands that the opinions he needs to worry about are not those of the press but those of the people beyond the gates that the press presumes to guard.
I distinguish between disease and health. Sexual intercourse leading to childbirth is not a disease. Using drugs, devices, or surgery to cure a disease differs, I think, from using them to inhibit a natural function.
Actually, the law of the Jews mandated abstinence during and for 7 days after all menstrual flow. The timing for most women would have permitted sex only around ovulation and for the last half of the cycle - guaranteed to increase fertility.
We no longer follow these hygiene regulations, anymore than we do the dietary restrictions.
There are good reasons to delay and/or space pregnancy. The Lord has given us medicine, barrier methods, and sterilization for tools to achieve this with out taking life.
(I consider that the use of tools is a good. Jesus was a carpenter, I’ll bet He used a saw and hammer.)
Responsible persons do not pollute the oceans and rivers with gene mutating carcinogen hormones so they can have sexual intercourse.
Artificial birth control has been around since long before Christianity and all denominations considered it sinful up until the middle of the 20th century. Judaism allows it in many circumstances(for wives)...after the birth of a boy and a girl or in the cases of health concerns.
If married persons don't want to have children and still want to have sexual relations, there are natural forms of birth control.
The Catholic Church (Santorum is Catholic and not CINO) teaches that sexual activity belongs only in marriage as an expression of total selfgiving and union, and always open to the possibility of new life.
Regardless, there is no reason for you to be concerned that Santorum believes this about birth control nor any reason for you to be concerned about being Pro Choice and irresponsible, if that is your preference for yourself and society and the environment.
Santorum (because it will take so much more than only him) can do nothing to change the evil laws and amorality that are already in place which permit the ills of artificial birth control.
What one should see in his statement is that Santorum does have moral values and is not simply a hollow reed blowing in the winds of popularity.
If a person chooses the immoral (in Christian, Catholic, environmental, health and cultural perspective) choice of artificial birth control, then that is their choice and nobody will ever be able to stop them.
Consider the subjects of suicide and murder and abortion and premarital sex...two of the four are illegal, but mankind can do them all and who is going to be able to stop them? Nobody.
No debt goes unpaid, in the end. Yet regarding artificial birth control...be it increased prostate and breast cancer rates, birth defects, degenerative diseases, altered sexual development of future generations, moral decline, loss of soul, etc, in this life or extended cleansing duration in purgatory or even eternal damnation - the “choice” is one’s own free will to make.
That being said, why would one be concerned that Santorum views birth control from a Christian and Catholic perspective, when he is a Catholic? This is a good thing, for all who consider ethics and principles to be assets and desirable attributes for a leader.
Unless one is seeking the immoral atheistic secularist humanist or the an anarchist to run this nation, there is no problem. If that is who one desires as their president, then, perhaps that person should be supporting the candidates with no real moral principles and no core ethical values who have sold their souls, believing the lie they can buy new ones, and we all know who they are. And, it appears, currently, that is who is leading in Iowa right now. Go figure, huh!?
There’s a downside to cancer surgery too! WTF.
What if you constantly get the opposite of blessings?
And in society it has a disparate impact. Stupid women don't practice effective birth control but smart women do.
Just visit a high school or college to see the inevitable results.
I agree that he was voicing a personal opinion and not suggesting a policy but this just plays into the image that Santorum is just running as a Social Conservative. That may have worked 8 years ago but today conservatives want someone who is going to cut government, reform entitlements and get rid of lobbyist influence. That ain’t Rick.
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