Sunday NYT commentary time.
Last week, I read it in style -- outside in the sun while drinking a coffee and having a donut. This is a fine way by the way to read the paper, and I have done so at various times. It can also be noted that the NYT is a bit of a rip-off, especially since many people do not read chunks of it (yeah, okay, you read the automobiles and real estate section regularly ... fine). It is $3.50 and much of it can be found online, though now their precious opinion columnists are generally behind a subscription wall. Not worth the price to read them. But, I still find hard copies of papers and books worthwhile, including at the table or outside. No laptop with Internet service have I, but even if I did, not quite the same.
A few interesting pieces can be tied together as having a religious theme. A piece (focusing on how poverty, deprivation, and governmental policies leads to extremism) on troubles in Sinai has this telling comment:
First slowly, and then more rapidly, religious and government pressures began to undermine the one institution that served to maintain public order: the tribe.
"They destroyed the most important thing in the tribe, the power of the sheik," said Salah el-Bollak, a writer and expert in local Bedouin culture. "Now the sheik is nothing but an informer for the government."
People here said that the government inadvertently made the same mistake with the mosques, by requiring that all imams be employees of the state. That dictate undermined their credibility and sent people elsewhere for religious guidance, many local people said.
The "elsewhere" all too often are extremists, who are in effect seen as honest brokers. The value of separation of church and state as well as privacy rights is underlined. A well rounded understanding of the Founders of this country would re-inforce the point. "Liberal" thought was concerned about tyranny of all sorts, including limitations on personal, economic, and religious action. Putting aside the fact that many key leaders were rather freethinking in sentiment (a Book Review piece covers this ground ... it should be noted that focusing on elites here can be misleading), they were clearly concerned with separating church from state -- not totally, but a lot more than some who want us to believe they were all Christian conservatives like to imply. [See also, The Godless Constitution, a good little book.]
The move to conservatism in this country, as well as the importance of the base to those in power, has led to various troubling things. One area touches matters of sexuality, including such things as abstinence education -- this sounds like a good thing, and it can be, but only if taken in moderation. Moderation sounds like something conservatives might like, but one thinks of Barry Goldwater (supportive of gay and abortion rights) comment that extremism in promotion of liberty is no vice. Sometimes, it is. When you hold back funding to needy international women's health funds because a group might merely speak about abortion, you cross a line. The NYT Magazine also discusses the movement against contraception.
This is simply counterproductive and self-defeating. Contraception reduces unwanted pregnancies and abortion. Now, it also can further sexual activity, but nothing is without cost, right? Sex was well practiced outside "acceptable" limits way before the Age of Aquarius. Contraception in some form was always with us. Apparently, it's okay if the potential is there in some rough fashion (think Russian Roulette) to make it a fearful presence. Or, perhaps, God or nature, wants the infertile to have all the luck, since they can have sex without worry. It also is a sort of "job well done" retirement perk for post-menopausal women. This fertility issue also connects to why gay marriage is so problematic with all the exceptions somehow explained away. Given the reduced sex, there is a lot more time for such scholasticism.
Zenarolla [a leader in the pro-life movement] told me she converted to Catholicism two years ago: "I tell people I became Catholic because of the church's teaching on contraception. [Some Protestants have similar views.] We are opposed to sex before marriage and contraception within marriage. We believe that the sexual act is meant to be a complete giving of self. Of course its purpose is procreation, but the church also affirms the unitive aspect: it brings a couple together. By using contraception, they are not allowing the fullness of their expression of love. To frustrate the procreative potential ends up harming the relationship."
This should be a private decision ... it is religious in nature, a selective way of upholding the intimacy of private associations, and involves personal liberties (and equality). So, this alone is a reason to attack those who want to press this one view on the rest of us via the force of law. This includes blocking Plan B, funding programs that promote this viewpoint (with tragic results), and so forth. But, it can also be attacked head on. Let's put aside those who see contraceptives (and abortion btw) as a way to allow men to have their way with women. In practice, fear of pregnancy has not stopped men from forcing themselves on their wives. It is not worthy of much more than disdain.
The idea that playing Russian Roulette, especially at various tricky times during the marriage (economics, family illness, and so forth), furthers intimacy and so forth is downright questionable. In many cases, it clearly is counterproductive. It also leads to hypocrisy. The Catholic Church is against "any action which either before, at the moment of or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation." It is sophistry to focus on "specifically" and therefore allow the rhythm method. A method that is "intended to prevent procreation." A measure that "frustrates" the unitive function of marriage ... pulling the couple apart a chunk of the time.
It doesn't hold up to scrutiny ... Vatican II made a big mistake by not taking the dissident view among theologians and allowing them. Anyway, the fight emphasizes the importance of first principles. The current leadership is bad for any number of reasons, the bad way they lead is but one.