[Zeke]

To change the subject a bit, I've made 5MV's Remembrance Day update, taking some advice from Valium earlier in the thread.

To change the subject back a bit, contraception is one of the few serious issues where I disagree with my church's stand on the subject. Maybe birth control is a sin -- that's a tough call to make, and I haven't made it myself yet. But trying to keep everyone from having access to birth control is a horrifically bad idea. The US is a predominantly Christian nation with laws that spring from Judeo/Christian morality, but not everyone in it is Christian, and freedom of religion is one of the nation's founding principles. That's not the real problem, though.

The problem is that we have to do something to stem the tide. STDs are rampant. AIDS hasn't been a "gay problem" for at least ten years. IJD has the stats on accidental pregnancies. And the problems we have with unprotected sex in the West are nothing compared to the situation in Africa. And yet the Church is busy discouraging condom use, not just for its followers but for everyone. It's like enforcing the speed limit out of town in the middle of a nuclear reactor meltdown.

Yes, it would be a lot better if sex had never been trivialized -- if people treated it with the respect and significance it deserves. But we don't, and there's no realistic way to fix that any time soon. Right now what's needed is, if not a cure, a control. Something to lessen the damage. To slow the spread of disease, to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies. Condoms aren't a solution. In the long run, maybe they're not even a good thing. But they are by FAR the lesser of two evils.

By the way, one reason my stand on this is different from my stand on abortion is that the religious argument is the only one against contraception. There's a strong secular case against gay marriage. There's an overwhelming secular case against abortion. But there is NO secular case against birth control. That makes a big difference in a country with freedom of religion.