Stand Up for Religious Freedom!

My family and I attended this rally in Chicago's Federal Plaza, and it was inspiring and tons of fun!  Well worth the hours taken off of work to be there!




...and more pix!...

The Dawkins Delusion: "90% safe is better than 100% safe"

"The Dawkins Delusion: Benedict XVI is 'stupid, ignorant or dim'", Gerald Warner - Telegraph

What the Pope actually said about condoms on March 18, 2009:

"I would say that this problem of AIDS cannot be overcome with advertising slogans. If the soul is lacking, if Africans do not help one another, the scourge cannot be resolved by distributing condoms; quite the contrary, we risk worsening the problem. The solution can only come through a twofold commitment: firstly, the humanization of sexuality, in other words a spiritual and human renewal bringing a new way of behaving towards one another; and secondly, true friendship, above all with those who are suffering, a readiness - even through personal sacrifice - to be present with those who suffer. And these are the factors that help and bring visible progress." -Catholic News Agency

Like many others who have attacked the Pope over these remarks, Richard Dawkins apparently thinks it a bad thing to criticize the distribution of condoms in the fight against AIDS. After all, condoms often block transmission of the HIV, which causes AIDS. Dawkins claims that "the Pope is either stupid, ignorant or just dim".

But condoms, according to the United Nations, have only a 90% protection rate against HIV transmission. On the other hand, marital fidelity and abstinence from premarital sex has an essentially 100% success rate at preventing HIV transmission.

The Pope's critics may not wish to acknowledge that objective data demonstrates promiscuous condom users are at a much higher risk of HIV infection and AIDS than individuals who reserve sex to marriage. Their loud, indignant objections are not based on science, but upon other interests that influence their judgment.

Consequently Dawkins can't fathom how a 100% effective plan is better at stopping AIDS (and ennobling individuals) than the destructive and dehumanizing gamble of rubberized, promiscuous sex.

Pope says condoms are not the solution to AIDS

Pope says condoms are not the solution to Aids - they make it worse -Times Online

The Pope is correct.

Promotion of condom usage encourages a casual attitude toward promiscuous sex, a major factor in both the spread of HIV and in the continued sexual exploitation of women.

But the World Health Organization and its corporate friends are threatened by this truth.

Therefore the Pope must be mocked.

Nancy Pelosi: 'Children cost too much, and are life unworthy of life'

Pelosi: Contraception is Good Stimulus for the Economy - Capital Commerce (usnews.com)

Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

"Well, the family planning [contraception and abortion] services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government." -ABC's This Week, 25 January 2009.

Translation:

"Children are a drag on the economy. In particular, the children of minority groups of lower economic status represent a big cost to society. We're in financial trouble now, and so we're better off without these children. We need to promote contraception and abortion to discourage reproduction among less desirable groups."

Birth Control and the (shrinking) Culture of Death

EWTN.com - Birth Control Pill Inventor Laments Demographic "Catastrophe"

Pope Paul VI in the 1960's predicted that acceptance of artificial contraception would bring many evils to men, women, families, and the world. The evidence is abundant that his warning was and remains prophetic.

The demographic implosion in many western countries reveals an epidemic of moral darkness which prizes pleasure, comfort, and freedom from commitment over generosity, fidelity, and love.

"Be fruitful and multiply", the divine calling engraved upon human nature, illuminates mankind's earthly vocation to life-giving generosity, service, and love. But increasingly this mission has been abandoned by many who have adopted a different motto: to "Be barren and lifeless".

When the natural connection between sexuality and procreation is deliberately severed, both lose their meaning and power to sustain individuals, families, and society.

Artificial contraception breaks that connection. It makes it all too easy to view sexuality as purely a recreational activity requiring no significant responsibility, commitment, or love. Therefore, one's partner needs hardly to be respected even as a person with life-giving potential, but simply as a tool for one's use. This vision of sex is conveyed powerfully by artificial contraception.

The inner language of human sexuality speaks the message, "I give myself to You totally, and I accept You totally". The inner language of artificial birth control says, "I do not give myself to You totally: I do not entrust to You my procreative potential, nor do I accept Yours."

Read for Yourself the Paul VI's comments on the meaning of human sexuality and the threat posed by contraception.

Bishops pledge to fight Obama on abortion - USATODAY.com

Bishops pledge to fight Obama on abortion - USATODAY.com

To the Roman Catholic Bishops of the United States:

Is it not time to publicly excommunicate elected officials at the highest levels of government who claim to be Catholic yet publicly support elective abortion?

Natural family planning NOT ethically equivalent to embryonic stem cell research

Re: Differences surface in McCain-Obama Christian forum

To: R. Alta Charo, professor of law and ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Dear Professor Charo,

USA Today quoted You, "If (McCain) believes in human rights at the moment of conception, then he ought to be against embryonic stem cell research, IVF (in vitro fertilization) and even the so-called rhythm method."

If this quote is accurate, then it’s only two-thirds right. Certainly, the inalienable rights of a newly conceived human being ought to be protected, and embryonic stem cell research and IVF result in terrible violations of these rights.

However, the “rhythm method” and other forms of natural family planning involving periodic abstinence (such as the highly effective “Creighton Model”) involve acts of a much different sort, acts that do not result in injury or death to any human being. Couples who practice periodic abstinence exercise their reproductive powers in a responsible and loving way, without trying to manipulate, circumvent, or destroy either the nature of the sexual act or its natural consequences, namely conception and childbirth.

By contrast, IVF and embryonic stem cell research subject newly conceived human beings to manipulation and death by experimentation and selective extermination. Even if these activities are carried out for good motives, such as to further medical research or bring children to an infertile couple, they are ethically reprehensible because they involve the exploitation and killing of one class of human beings in order to obtain some benefit for another class of human beings.

It is no coincidence that couples who practice periodic abstinence as a means of regulating conception and childbirth tend to be strongly “pro-life”, believing that from the moment of conception, human beings have inalienable rights which must be protected by any just society. Those who hold such a position stand ethically on high ground.

Thinking of getting a vasectomy?

Lately I've heard several radio ads for a Chicago-area clinic encouraging men to have a vasectomy. If You're thinking about it, I urge You to research this carefully, and don't rely only on the information provided by those selling these procedures.

Why do I care? No, I haven't had this procedure and never will. There are strong philosophical and moral reasons why no man -especially no Christian (much less a Catholic) man- should consider sterilizing himself. But aside from those reasons I feel sorry for the men who will have this operation and regret it purely because of the chronic physical pain that afflicts more than a few. So I just want to point to some medical info You should be aware of if You're considering paying someone to sterilize You.


"Pain, Diabetes And Dementia -Research Highlights Medical Risks of Vasectomies"
National Catholic Register, August 12-18, 2007
-Read about what may be strong link between vasectomy and a form of dementia called primary progressive aphasia (PPA).

If It Works, Don't Fix It!
Vasectomy Information Home Page.
-Lots of information and references regarding the risks of vasectomy.

"Vasectomy: A pain in the b***s?"
Malehealth
"...few realise that at up to one in three can expect to suffer long-term testicular pain."

"Testicular Pain Following Vasectomy: A Review of Postvasectomy Pain Syndrome"
Christiansen and Sandlow, Journal of Andrology, 2002.
The University of Iowa Department of Urology, Iowa City, Iowa.
"...a small percentage of postvasectomy patients (less than 10%) develop PVPS."
(What if You're in the unlucky 10%?)

LongTerm Complications after a Vasectomy Operation
ABC Radio National
"I had a terrible experience of the pain over a period of a few days, just continuing to get worse and worse and worse and worse. Until I reached the point where I was writhing on the floor in agony; it was dreadful..."

Also see the following:

Journal of Urology
* J Urol 1997 Oct;158(4):1528. Re: Vasectomy reversal for treatment of the post-vasectomy pain syndrome.
* Br J Urol 1997 Feb;79(2):269-270; The incidence of post-vasectomy chronic testicular pain and the role of nerve stripping (denervation) of the spermatic cord in its management.
* J Urol 1996 Apr;155(4):1284-1286; Questionnaire-based outcomes study of nononcological post-vasectomy complications.
* Br J Urol 1992 Feb;69(2):188-191; Chronic testicular pain following vasectomy.
* Br J Urol 1991 Oct;68(4):407-413; Epididymectomy for post-vasectomy pain: histological review.
* J Urol 1985 Sep;134(3):494-497; A late post-vasectomy syndrome.

Here come the population nazis

Not to judge, but 16 kids? Stop already.
-San Francisco Chronicle columnist bludgeons large family

"Freedom of Choice", the supreme godhead of the left, serenely showers her liberties upon those who wish to kill the children they have already conceived, but evidently is not so absolute and universal a deity as to bestow her freedoms upon large families...

2005.10.21
Re: "Not to judge, but 16 kids? Stop already."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/19/DDGJSF9UDD1.DTL

Mr. Morford,

So, Your point is...

"Pro-choice" implies a right to kill children You’ve already conceived, but not a right to raise them without the approval of at least one liberal columnist.

People essentially are not problem solvers, they are problems: a blight on the planet. Solution? Fewer people.

Viewing children as a great gift from God is "pious sanctimony", but instructing a distant family that God disapproves of their children is acceptable.

Those who view children as tomorrow’s inventors, artists, geniuses, and leaders are morons.

Nobody named "Jim Bob" can be any good, especially if he wants to be a Republican senator.

Married Christians who are particularly fertile and raise large families belong to the "asexual Christian right". One must be a "funky" non-Christian to be "pro-sex".

Lots of great fertile sex between mutually consenting spouses is to be publicly ridiculed by cynical tattooed gasbags, some of whom, one might guess, have little personal experience of having a spouse, great fertile sex, or children. But infertile, casual sex with numerous promiscuous partners is to be promoted as a great way to accelerate the depopulation of western nations and protect endangered caribou.

Regards,
John Robin