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BTW, I'm getting REAL tired of the repeated sermons of how only a "true Christian"(whatever THAT is) can be a conservative. A nice chunk of the GOOD CONSERVATIVES here are Jewish, and some (gasp!) are Atheists. This bigotry and outright religious prejudice is flat wrong, dumb, and shortsighted in the extreme. At the risk of hyperbole, this is the thinking of our Enemies.

Very well stated. Like you I am getting tired of phrases about "true Christian" -- just what does that mean? This birth control issue really grinds me -- they would prefer to bring unwanted children into the world then practice artificial birth control? That makes no sense! I guess this all goes along with the rhetoric about who can be a "true conservative" which I detest as much as the "true Christian" rhetoric and consider it insulting! Some of these people want to be judge and jury of the rest of us and determine who is the "true" anything really are going way over the top!

Traditionally most cultures and religions discourage sex outside of marriage because it leads to the birth of illegitimate children. In modern liberal American culture the prohibitions on pre-marital sex, adultery, and homosexuality have been abolished or greatly diminished in strength. Some parts of the world like western Europe may be as liberal or more liberal than America but much of the rest of the world still holds these conservative beliefs. When people from cultures more conservative than our own look at the sexual mores aspect of American society they do not see it as a great success. They see a high rate of illegitimacy, a high abortion rate, and a high rate of sexually transmitted disease. The fact that MTV is broadcasting a very sleazy agressive sexual message to the rest of the world about what America is like does not help our image.

You probably believe that birth control reduces illegitimacy because it prevents pregnancy, but there is another side to it. When modern birth control was first invented in the form of the pill, it was promoted not as a means of reinforcing moral responsibility but as a way of avoiding responsibility while enjoying a liberal sexual lifestyle. This was followed by a radical liberalisation of sexual mores in what had previously been a fairly conservative culture. The problem is that you can't make birth control 100 percent effective. When birth control fails this leads to a demand for abortion because an expectation has been created that people are supposed to be able to get away with sex outside of marriage because of birth control. I don't personally oppose the existence of birth control but I don't think the cultural issues raised by it can be entirely ignored.

I don't see the Catholic position as the agressor on this thread because what is being criticised is the use of imperial power through the missuse of the world bank to impose a cultural agenda which violates peoples religious beliefs. I think people have a political right to vote pro-choice if they choose to do so in their own country, but it should be decided democratically. To impose it on another culture or nation by force is a dangerous form of imperial arrogance.