A slight digression:
The catholic church has a new Pope, Benedict XVI, and the meme is already spreading through the MS that he is too conservative, not willing to liberalize a church which needs secularizing, not willing to bend on contraception, condoms to combat HIV, homosexuality, etc. It is interesting that a man who is celibate, has never married, has never fathered children, is following in the footsteps, and likely to emulate, one of our most powerful defenders of children and families. As Cardinal Ratzinger, he gave a speech the other night (hat tip: Captain's Quarters) in which he said:
"[Relativism] is letting oneself be 'swept along by every wind of teaching.' (It) looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today's standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism, which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires."
Too many sophisticates do not realize that people need certainty; people need to know there are certain basic truths which allow us to evaluate our progress as moral beings. We can never expect to be perfect moral beings, but we need to know what the ideal is. My religion may not agree with or accept all the "truths" that Benedict XVI believes, but we agree on some of the basics, including extending dignity, tolerance, and rights to others. There are some things that are not open to discussion. If you wish to have an abortion or practice a homosexual lifestyle, you must accept that the Catholic Church cannot condone your actions and still remain the Catholic Church.
Digression over:
Morality, sexuality, and biology have been intimately related since the earliest days of civilization. Chastity and fidelity are powerful, biologically derived determinants when children are involved. Mankind has had to come up with various arrangements to ensure that one not only passed along one's genetic material, but also did not spend valuable resources raising someone else's child. Since throughout most of human history birth control was not an option, the only way to avoid an unwanted pregnancy was via chastity. It was incumbent on men to demand fidelity form their women if they wanted to avoid raising someone else's child. It was important for women to expect fidelity from men in order to minimize the risk that their main support structure was not diluted by the necessity to raise another woman's child. STD's made it even more of an imperative for both partners to be faithful. Most religions found ways to codify this wisdom as part of their morality.
The discovery of Penicillin was a milestone in history which no one would wish to undo. One of its unforeseen consequences was setting the stage for the sexual revolution of the 1960's. By the late 1960's, STD's, the most serious of which was syphilis, had lost much of their power to frighten people. A little Penicillin rendered syphilis about as frightening and serious as Strep throat, an easily treatable inconvenience. All that was required for a sexual revolution was the wide spread availability of the birth control pill.
For the first time in human history, having children became a choice, rather than an inevitable outcome of sexual activity. Sex and procreation were sundered. This is what has been revolutionary about the pill and the sexual revolution. The idea that sex and child rearing no longer had any necessary relationship to each other was unexplored, taken for granted, and revolutionary.
Once sex and procreation were sundered, the biological imperatives underlying morality were lost. Once sex was primarily about recreation, nothing was forbidden any longer. While many people took advantage of the opportunity to explore their sexuality and took great joy in their explorations, there were also many victims. My concern is not with the adult victims of the sexual revolution but with the children. Once having a child had become a choice, the right to an abortion was logical and inevitable. Furthermore, once a child had become a matter of choice, rather than biological necessity, the unconscious ambivalence toward children that had previously been hidden by nature, found a venue in which to be expressed.
A brief disclaimer: I tend to be fairly libertarian in outlook and do not believe we can or should turn back the clock to a time when homosexuality had to be hidden, or abortion was done in back alleys; however, I do think we need to find a way to allow people to have the individual freedoms they desire, tempering license with responsibility, and above all, protecting the health and welfare of our children.
More to follow.
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