I understand the concern that Catholics have that rejecting this doctrine leads to a slippery slope that one may reject all other doctrine that the Catholic church considers to be fundamental.
However, my point is that this doctrine, by itself, doesn’t impact one’s standing before God with respect to their salvation. Others have said that a person is in danger of condemntation to Hell if they don’t accept perpetual virginity. There is no basis for that statement, and it’s only a scare tactic.
this doctrine, by itself, doesn’t impact one’s standing before God with respect to their salvation -- you are correct, with the condition by itself it does not, however we do not toss or change one part of the faith handed down to us.
Jvette correctly pointed out that Just look within this thread and you will see posits that Mary could have divorced and remarried. Or married again after becoming a widow. I don’t have to remind you narses of the heinous remarks of a certain poster(in a different thread) that Mary could have been a prostitute after the birth of Jesus and that would matter not a whit.
The reason it matters is the same reasoning why the Church does not permit divorce or contraception -- the Anglicans were the first to permit divorce and slowly but surely it ended up with Gere Robinson. They were the first to allow contraception and now we have an Anglican pastoress saying "Abortion is a blessing".
I know you mean well and you can see this slippery slope
We have to be firm on the faith that has been handed down to us, because it's very easy to slip one little thing at at time and finally one ends up as the ECUSA..