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“I make decisions as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can. Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.” -John McCain

Absolutely! We need to stick by Palin - McCain’s choice. McCain’s a maverick who knows what he is doing. Palin may be a gov. of a state with only 700,000 people for 18 months - who cares! She is gold! Stick with it till the bitter end. McCain’s judgment is unimpeachable.

Edwards, Clinton, McCain - the violation of the marriage covenant knows no political boundaries. Sad.

Thanks for the heads up - That was rather interesting.

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I’m going to try to ease out of this thread - so I’ll leave it at this.

As to the unanswered question - I was simply curious to see if any Roman Catholics would affirm the notion that sex betwen two heterosexual, married people - whether genital intercourse with contraception, or oral sex, anal sex, masturbation, etc. - if those constituted grave sin or not. Just a question.

Legalistic - calling married intercourse or sexuality ‘sterile gymnastics’ if family planning is used to me, frankly, seems legalistic and just sort of sad. I can’t speak for other folks sex life, but mine is a bit more rich, meaningful, life-giving and blessed than ‘sterile gymnastics.’

But if one views sex between a married man and woman as legitimate and moral only if pregnancy is a realistic possibility as the result of orgasm, then it makes sense. To me, to many, that perspective is extrabiblical and legalistic. The use or non-use of contraception is a matter of personal conscience.

Birth control is more available in Europe and one doesn’t see the same level of unwanted and unintended pregnancies between unmarried folk - such as those you transported to ‘juvie.’ You label the babies they sired - god bless that procreation - bastards. Huh. Should we abort the bastards? Should they bear the label bastard through their lives. So - abortion is evil, but contraception is also evil. You’re going to wind up with babies then - why label them bastards?

Condoms are shunned in Africa, the AIDS rate is very high and the notion that having sex with (i.e. - raping) a virgin will cure it is current. Wouldn’t wider availability and more education as to the use and application of family planning and the biological facts of sex be a positive good?

Correlation is not causation. You suggest contraception abets divorce or illegitimacy. Perhaps it is cars, the ability to travel outside the bounds of community; the anonymity of cities and suburbia? The avoidance of realistic sexuality education among many Christians? The longer time between the onset of puberty and the average age of marriage? It is a complicated and complex issue. Blaming the availability of birth control seems a very superficial answer.

Finally, the NFP “all contraception is sin folks” don’t mind throwing labels and judgments around but you balk at the perception that it is legalistic to condemn other Christians who in good conscience utilize contraception in family planning? Sorry.

That said - Have a blessed sabbath day and Memorial Day, I bow out. It is an intramural debate among sistren and brethren. We’re all in it together against Islam, etc, etc, etc. Blessings.

I’ll leave off this thread by writing that I agree with the substance of your post - God and Israel, Christ and Church, both used the metaphor of husband and wife. Marriage is a covenant between a man and woman, children may come from it. I simply don’t buy into the legalistic prohibition on responsible family planning by Rome. No one yet has admitted to the condemnation by Rome of sex acts, inside of marriage, resulting in orgasm that is non-procreative, actual or potential. Rome’s position is not scriptural and contrary to reason and nature. Again, more power to the folks who are gratified by various methods of birth control they deem ‘natural.’

Pardon me. The aspersion, “protestant drivel” was hurled first.

For more references to primary sources and interaction with both Christian tradition and the scriptures, you could try Mark D. Jordan’s, The Ethics of Sex or L. W. Countryman’s Dirt, Greed and Sex.

I prefer dark German beer.

Father of three, husband of one.

There are a lot of wonderful metaphors for God in our scriptural tradition aren’t there!

God is like a father, a rock, a warrior, a mother hen, a fortress, a nursing mother who will not forsake her child, etc.

No, it’s the nonsensical drivel taught by Rome.

I would question the idea of sinful (perverse) chimpanzees. I simply raised the issue of natural example, because that is one of the bases for the Aristotelian tradition’s argument for what is ‘natural’ vs. ‘unnatural’ sex.

I provided Biblical references for my viewpoint in a previous post. As a former Anglican priest, I am sure you are well aware of the tradition’s rationale for marriage as a holy commonwealth.

Here is one source for my own Reformed, Protestant perspective on this issue.

Worldly Saints by Leland Ryken.

“The Puritan doctrine of sex was a watershed in the cultural history of the West, The Puritans devalued celibacy, glorified companionate marriage, affirmed married sex as both necessary and pure, established the ideal of wedded romantic love, and exalted the role of the wife.

This complex of ideas and values received its most eloquent and beautiful expression in Milton’s picture of the married life of Adam and Eve in his epic Paradise Lost. In portraying the perfect marriage in book four, Milton went out of his way to show that Adam and Eve enjoyed sexual union before the fall. As Adam and Eve retire to their bower for the evening, we read,

‘Straight side by side were laid, nor turned I ween
Adam from his fair spouse, nor Eve the rites
Mysterious of connubial love refused:
Whatever hypocrites austerely talk
Of purity and place and innocence,
Defaming as impure what God declares
Pure, and commands to some, leaves free to all.
Our maker bids increase, who bids abstain
But our Destroyer, foe to God and man?’

Having dissociated himself from the [Roman] Catholic tradition, Milton proceeds to give his famous apostrophe (address) to wedded love:

‘Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source
Of human offspring, sole propriety
In paradise of all things common else.
By thee adulterous lust was driven from men
Among the bestial herds to range, by thee
Founded in reason, loyal, just and pure,
Relations dear, and all the charities
Of father, son, and brother first were known
Far be it, that I should write thee sin or blame,
Or think thee unbefitting holiest place,
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets,
Whose bed is undefiled and chaste pronounced.’

All the usual Puritan themes are here: the Biblical basis for affirming sex (as evidenced by several key Biblical illusions in the passage), the differentiation between animal lust and human sexual love, the domestic context into which sexual fulfilment is put, and the romantic overtones of the passage. This, and not the modern stereotype, is what the Puritans really said about sex.” (Worldy Saints)

“[Husband and Wife] may joyfully give due benevolence one to the other; as two musical instruments rightly fitted do make a most pleasant and sweet harmony in a well tuned consort.” (an anonymous Puritans source, Worldly Saints, p. 44)

Richard Baxter is also a good primary source for a Protestant and Reformed companionate view of marriage and married sexuality.

I’m sure the participants in the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre said the same thing about Protestants. “We’ll outnumber the Protestants soon enough.” Lovely sentiments.

A Protestant position regarding contraception would include the idea of freedom of conscience - to use or not to use; when and how to utilize family planning methods.

They’ll be plenty of us homeschooling Protestants with a full-orbed Christian worldview saving civilization with our families - small, medium and large. Don’t worry. We’ll let the Roman Catholics help.

I agree with you - in the first sentence of your post - and that is the essence of the issue & the source of the disagreement between the pro and con positions on contraception.

The nature of ‘the act’ of sexual expression between a husband and wife is that they become one flesh - the first and primary end of their relationship is companionship and unity. Secondarily, the end of sexual expression in marriage may be for procreation, but that is not the radical nature of the sex act; it is the sexual expression (and sex is only one component of the contract and covenant of marriage) of a relationship of mutuality and care.

No, I don’t ‘get it.’ The Roman theory of marriage as sacrament and prohibition on contraception is rooted in Aristotelian philosophy and certain of the fathers such as Clement - it’s rooted in the notion of what is ‘natural’ vs. what is ‘unnatural.’

Humans are equipped for sex not only as an instrument of procreation, but for pleasure as well. A great deal of sex takes place in the animal kingdom that is non-procreative but for purposes of conflict resolution or avoidance, food exchange and it would seem, simply, pleasure.

Beyond that - take a look at St. Paul in his instructions to the Corinthian Church regarding celibacy and chastity. Paul certainly roots his opinions in a companionate view of marriage. Contraceptives were known in the ancient near east, but their is no mention of the practice of pregnancy prevention in the New Testament.

Again, none of the good folk supporting the Roman prohibition on contraception on this thread will directly address the issue, the infertile aside - can sex without the possibility of pregnancy be moral - should post-menopausal women or pregnant women have sex with their husbands? The issue, as Rome has framed it and as it exists in classical Roman theology, is that sex without the possibility of procreation, is sin.

Are condoms de facto immoral? Should spermicidal jelly or condoms, for instance, be made more available in Africa with its high rate of heterosexual AIDS? Can a married couple practice anal sex, fellatio or cunninglingus? Must a married couple in financial straits remain celibate if they feel they could not support a child? For them to utilize any means that would avoid conception is immoral? Such a view is simply silly and unbiblical. I feel sorry for the folk who reduce married sex to simply a guilt-ridden instrument of procreation and rob it of its depth and richness within the covenant of marriage. The author of Hebrews enjoins us to honor the marriage bed without any qualification, without reference to procreation. The Song of Solomon celebrates a lusty sexuality between a man and a woman, quite explicit in the Hebrew, without any reference to procreation - the human body, the lover, is celebrated for his or her own sake.

Marriage is a covenant of companions and exists for its own sake, not merely for the purpose of procreation. In the archetypal story of Genesis, God creates Eve not for the birthing of a child, but as Adam’s helpmate, his companion.

The social sciences, human experience, common sense and Christian theology stand againt Rome’s opposition to family planning. Happily, most American Catholics disregard Rome’s teaching on this matter.

Pope Pius XI in Casti Connubii wrote:

“Since, therefore, openly departing from the uninterrupted Christian tradition some recently have judged it possible solemnly to declare another doctrine regarding this question, the Catholic Church, ... in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union from being defiled by this foul stain, ... proclaims anew: any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin. “

Wouldn’t the folk who practice the rhythm method or attempt to determine in any way when the woman would not be fertile be an attempt to have sex without pregnancy as a potential result?

More power, as I say, to the couples who wish to only have intercourse with the view to welcome any resulting pregnancy and abstain otherwise. I find the castigation of responsible family planning to be odd and one result is abortion.

For the good folk practicing the rhythm method, it would surely seem they run afoul of the spirit, if not the letter, of Pius XI’s promulgation above. That’s just an outsider’s view.

Your postulate that a third party must exist in a relationship of mutuality and care to be healthy is completely arbitrary and a non sequitor.

You view, then, as unhealthy, sex between a married couple who cannot conceive a child whatever the reason might be? Aristotle was liable to err you know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kJHQpvgB8

By your reasoning, a couple incapable of conceiving a child should not have sex? Post-menopausal women, those with infertility issues, etc. have sex for a number of reasons - conceiving a child is not one of them. I suppose you might call it recreational sex. Self-serving? Why? It involves mutuality, love, concern for the other - all certainly sacramental, if by sacramental you intend a means of experiencing grace.

So contraception to prevent pregnancy thwarts God’s will, but trying to thwart pregnancy via the avoidance of sex when a woman might become pregnant is alright.

Isn’t God more powerful than a thin latex barrier? As those opposed to condoms or birth control pills assert when counseling against sex outside marriage - birth control isn’t 100% effective - so isn’t there enough wiggle room for God to get around barriers humans might throw in her way? - whether condoms, rhythm method or pill? The intent is the same - avoid pregnancy; it is only the method that differs - mere hair splitting.

Clerics argued against anesthia for women during childbirth when it was first utilized to that end as avoiding the full penalty of woman’s ‘curse’ - and avoiding “God’s will.” This article expresses the same mentality. If God’s purposes are worked out in spite of a condom at the outset or a life support system at the end - God’s will will be accomplished in traditional theology.

More power to them I suppose.

Perhaps the Hillary was sending out a not too subtle hint to Obama regarding his fate should he dare rob the Hillary of its rightful place in the White House.

Couldn’t you decorate a temple?