The Fourth Wall
page 7
To start with, your title
“The Catholic Church’s War on
Birth Control” is illogical. To
say that the church has a war on
is to say that it is actively waging
a war against. This is not the
case. The Catholic Church can
tie its requirements against birth
control methods to about 4000
years ago, while modern birth
control has only. been around
since the 60’s. While there was
once a very blurred line between
the Catholic Church and govern-
ment authority, the Catholic
Church has not made any anti-
contraception dictates in govern-
ment for a very long time. This
new “war” is not caused by the
aggression of the church but of
the birth control movement. If
anything, it is birth control that is
waging a war on the church by
invading its organizational work-
ings.
In the first paragraph
you cite American ignorance and
intolerance as issues that make
the new debate about birth con-
trol interesting and you cite the
New York Mosque and preven-
tion of Sharia law as examples.
You should know that the New
York Mosque, which was offi-
cially a cultural center, was de-
bated as a social issue, not reli-
gious intolerance. It was specifi-
cally stated that the presence of
the Mosque would disrespect the
dead and the families of the dead
who were killed in the name of
Islam. Just as it would be in poor
taste to build a Christian church
over the foundation of a bombed
abortion clinic. There was no
religious intolerance because no
aspect of the religion was in-
tolerated, unless you count the
historically established practice
of building Mosques over the
sites of Islamic victories. And
there is a good reason why Sha-
ria Law is prevented in the US,
namely because it directly dimin-
ishes the constitutionally protect-
ed rights of not only members of
Islam, but non-Islamics who may
live in Sharia controlled regions.
In an article where you discuss
Women’s rights, I found this to
be most puzzling because under
Sharia a man may kill his wife
for being disobedient, and wom-
en are to be stoned to death for
adultery when they are raped.
In the second paragraph
you state that the Catholic
Church is against contraception
due to “tradition”, that Catholic
authorities are denying the fact
that people have sex, that reli-
gion needs to be updated, and
that the Catholic denial of human
sexuality is harmful. All of these
inferences are wrong. The Cath-
olic Church opposes contracep-
tion as a tenant of religious re-
quirement handed down from
God, not because of simple tradi-
tion. They state that God de-
signed sex for reproduction, and
that the pleasure from it is just a
bonus. To treat sex as otherwise
is to deny God’s natural design.
They back it up with scripture
(Gen38-8-10) where a man
named Onan is struck dead for
“pulling out”. The Catholic
Church makes no denial that
people are having sex, premarital
sex, protected sex, or promiscu-
ous sex. It is fully aware of hu-
man sexuality. What the Catholic
Church is denying is the idea that
its employees’ sexual habits have
greater importance than the dic-
tates of God. Also the Catholic
Churches views on contraception
apply to both marital sex and pre
-marital sex. But to address your
point that the church believes
that contraception leads to: pre-
By: Dave Knox
marital sex and that its resistance
to contraception is harmful I
would like to point out that pre-
marital sex has indeed increased,
along with a huge increase in pre
-marital pregnancies from 2% in
the 1920’s to 33% in 1999. Chil-
dren born out of wedlock are
disproportionally more prone to
live in poverty or on welfare, and
commit murder according to a
study out of the John M. Olin
Center for Studies in Law, Eco-
nomics, and Public Policy Work-
ing Papers. So it is not the
Church’s stance on contraception
which has been harmful to socie-
ty, but the secularists’. Finally
you state that the Church’s at-
tempt to apply its old teachings
to modern generations is impos-
sible, and that the church might
need to change with the times.
This statement is in error be-
cause the church is founded on
the idea of an eternal God who is
perfect and holy. If such a God
existed he would not change his
desires for our behavior based on
the whims of a fickle society but
would expect us to change to fit
his already proven methods. And
there is no shortage of people
who convert to strict religious
teachings....it is kinda the
Church’s whole shtick to convert
the “lost”. They’ve been doing it
for 2 thousand years to societies
far more depraved than our mod-
ern one.
In the third paragraph
you’ state Republicans as tram-
pling on women’s rights, that
women’s health needs contracep-
tion, and that the church would
have no problem with male con-
traception. First and foremost,
the Catholic Church ‘has been
politically split between the two
parties since the 60s, but in 2008
Obama had 54% of the Catholic
vote. And 70% of American
Muslims are affiliated with the
Democratic Party, despite their
views on women’s rights. I’d
also like to point out that these
women are not having their
rights violated at all. No one is
forcing them to work for Catho-
lic run organizations, and no one
is forcing them to have sex. It is
completely up to them where
they work and if they choose to
have sex, protected or not. Under
the Bonafide Occupational Qual-
ification laws Catholic organiza-
tions are under no legal require-
ment to offer any working condi-
tion that does not jive with their
religious beliefs. And women
have been having sex without
hormonal contraception for thou-
sands of years without signifi-
cant health problems. So it is
hardly a necessity. Finally, the
Catholic Church has always been
against contraception, and the
oldest from of contraception,
besides “pulling out” has been
the condom or condom like ap-
pliances. So there is no sexual
favoritism here.
In the final paragraph
you mention that due to a decline
in unwanted and teen pregnan-
cies that the logical step is to
offer contraception and that the
church should change for society
or be left behind. While it is
logical to offer contraception to
help reduce unwanted pregnan-
cies, it is not logical to force a
religiously run organization to
offer it to people whom it is ac-
tively trying to convince to not
have premarital sex or abortions
at all. It would be like telling a
fat kid to not eat candy and them
locking him in Willy Wonka’s
chocolate factory over night.
And while the CDC mentions
that teen pregnancy rates have
dropped according to recent
polls, it also states the findings
that unmarried women are 4
times more likely to abort than
married women. So the contra-
ception vs premarital sex argu-
ment for the Catholic Church is
still a lose-lose situation as far as
their beliefs go. And the Church
will never be left behind. There
will never be a shortage of peo-
ple who think they are “moving
forward” with society only to
discover years later that their
lives are wrecked with the conse-
quences of their poor life deci-
sions and remember that they
were once told of a better way to
live. Like I said before, the
Church is about saving the
lost.... and there will always be
people who are lost.
You also list a quote
section that discuses the issue
from a public funding stance.
While the reception of public
funding may require adherence
to certain policies, religious vio-
lations will never be among
them. The First Amendment spe-
cifically states that “congress
shall make no law” restricting
religious practice. So a law that
specifically requires a religious
organization to act in a way that
is contrary to its religion is not
constitutional. Also, public re-
quirements for public funds are
always directed toward public
use, not the private use of the
organizations employees. In the
case of public funded Catholic
Universities, such requirements
would be geared toward the en-
vironment, the students, and the
local populations, not the em-
ployees. Public funding having
private employee dictates is un-
precedented.