This means two things:

1. There was no homosexuality before the latter part of the 19th century.

2. The rate of homosexuality has been skyrocketing ever since.

What? Not true?

Then this must mean a third thing: hooey.

I was going to say, baloney.

We might ask, before society broke down in the late 19th century, back when sex was devoted solely to the getting of children, how was that teaching working?

And we have an answer: Semmelweiss.

Mr. Guinn:

Are we reading the same article? What I read does not say that divorcing sex from procreation creates homosexuality, but rather its the basis for the strength of the current homosexual movement.

And that isn't even the author's main point. The article goes on at length about how contraception is creating a society where heterosexuals view sex like homosexuals do because there is no chance of a child being conceived, as in a homosexual relationship.

Though I disagree with you a lot, I think it does you a disservice to state something the author does not.

Fagan's essay, (or at least this excerpt), was internally logical, that is, I agree with his assessment of how widespread contraception effected heterosexuals, and how it aligned hetero- and homosexual interests.

However, the larger point, that he completely misses, is that it was inevitable. Humans have been practicing contraception, with varying results, since time eternal. When contraception didn't work, infanticide was often practiced, which few would argue is more moral than contraception.
The difference here is, since WWII, contraception, whether condoms, chemicals, or IUDs, have had a 90%+ success rate.

Asking humans to NOT practice contraception, is like asking humans to forgo central heating, or air conditioning.
That is to say, it's human nature to attempt to control one's environment, and life, and to bring order out of chaos. By and large, humans like regularity and predictibility.

Thus, contraception.

Michael:

were that true that regularity would make contraception unnecessary. Just control yourselves at certain regular times and no contraception is necessary. The point is we wish to satisfy impulse, not behave with any restraint or regularity.

Buttercup:

You are right, sorry.

OJ:

You know what they call people who control themselves at regular times?

Parents. Over and over and over.

Jeff:

You know what they vcall beings that lack self-control--debased.

A buddy of mine used the rhythm method for 7 years with complete success. The instant they wanted a kid, they stopped, with complete success.

On the other hand, my wife used the pill for 2 years. In 2 years, we had a boy. Thank goodness for failures.

Hmmm. What's the word for baseless restrictions on natural human activity...

Unfortunately, words fail me at the moment.

It's noteworthy, though, that roughly 80% of American Catholics put the Church's position on complete disregard.

I'll have to tell my wife you think our marriage debased. Somehow, I doubt she will be amused. I know I'm not.

Judd:

My aunt converted to Catholicism by marriage. The rythym method got her four more kids than she wanted.

Jeff:

That copuld be the problem right there--morality isn't supposed to be amusing; it's supposed to be damned difficult, no, impossible.

All of you are ducking the question: is the alleged change really a change; and, if it is real, were the results bad?

Fagan asserts yes to both, but history says different.

Mr. Guinn:

My condolences to your aunt's children.

oj:

That is true, but doesn't change the idea that the widespread use of contraception was completely predictable, and IMO, irreversible.

Harry:

No, the result is not bad.
Nor is it particularly good.

Jeff:

(1) The word is "imaginary."

(2) I second Buttercup. I'm guessing this means she didn't take that bit in a Catholic marriage about joyfully welcoming children into the marriage all that seriously. I'm guessing she shouldn't've bothered getting married in a Catholic church.

(3) So 80% of American Catholics are rank sinners. Actually, it's 100%, but I suppose that 80% should mean something aside from a snide commentary on the actual "Catholicism" of those Catholics -- although that meaning eludes me.

OJ:

Morality should have a point other than imposing practice pain. The imposition of reproductive roulette doesn't seem to have one.

Buttercup:

She had her kids during the fifties, and did well by them. I doubt she was alone in feeling rather like a brood mare, though. I'll bet there were women born Catholic who felt precisely the same way.

Chris:

Good word choice.

I didn't mean any commentary on the Catholicism of that 80%; I was only parroting what I have read many times.

Harry

"Fagan asserts yes to both, but history says different."

You can be quite spiritual when you talks about history. I imagine you and history have some grand old chats after the rest of us have gone to bed.

Jeff:

Time to come clean. You have frequently pronounced the morality of many on this site to be highly immoral. But you obviously like the word. So let's hear the basis of your morality. How about completing the following: "The definition of moral behaviour is...."

Jeff:

(1) Thank you.

(2) Then as now, those women could stop being Catholic. They performed an act; they experienced the logical consequence of that act.

(3) I meant a commentary on them. My point -- which admittedly was poorly worded -- was that the fact that 60, or 80, or 99.9% of all Catholics in this country do something other than what they are supposed to do, does not have anything to do with the merits of this discussion. Put differently: Numerically superior heresy does not objective truth make. Put more directly: Decoupling an act from its consequences usually causes more problems than it solves.

Chris:

How much freedom did women have in the 50s? In the particular part of the US where my aunt lived, there were still Catholic Churc inspired laws (how thoroughly observed I have no idea) prohibiting the sale of contraceptives. So everyone, regardless of sect, had less choice then than now. (Thank you, Griswold)

As for the rest, that was a possibly too subtle poke at OJ who has used polling data as evidence for the correctness of a certain position. That said, numerically superior adherence to a position does not objective truth make.

Regardless, your conclusion is spot on.

Jeff:

Morality forces you to do that which is painful--other than you wish. You want a world where you only do things that please you--like killing inconvenient people.

Harry:

40 million dead babies says the change was bad.

And you think that number is larger than the pre-sexual abandon rate? That's naive.

Contraception and abortion were widespread in the heyday of the Christian hegemony you aspire to return to. All the almanacs had recipes for it, and there was another, subliterate thread to the same effect.

Logically, anyway, if you are opposed to 40 million dead babies, one answer would be more general and scrupulous use of contraceptives.

And you still have to deal with Semmelweiss and the Vienna Lying-in Hospital.

Peter, if I have any discussions with History, it's to hear her correct the lies I was taught in Catholic school.

OJ:

Stop dowdifying my comments.

Abortion aside, I am for a world where people have the right to decide for themselves, expressed through legal guardians as the situation may require, when medical care shall end.

Regarding abortion, the when of personhood is far from unanimous. Because of that disparity, I am in favor of people reaching their own decisions, not the government reaching it for them.

Freedom has a price.

So does tyranny. Apparently you would rather pay tyranny's price.

Harry:

Fair enough. History tells me somewhat different stories when I cuddle up to her. She prattles on about sin and evil.

Peter:

I have meant for people to question their morality, not that they are necessarily immoral.

I never asked what the definition of morality is. Rather, is it possible to characterize the morality of a sexual act in other than its context?

I haven't been able to. Can you?

Jeff:

that's not at all what you're demanding when you call for assisted suicide--you're allowing yourself to decide for another that they must kill you.

A few weeks ago you demanded that telemarketers not even be able to make your phone ring, never mind that they can't make you listen,but now you cede others the right to force us to kill them? If sodomy is a right do you have a right to force someone to sodomize you? Is there any right recognized in the Western tradition which allows one person to place an obligation to act upon another?

Jeff:

In what context are rape, pedophilia, bestiality, necrophilia, etc. moral?

OJ:

I'm not asking them to kill me, I'm asking them to allow whatever outcome will obtain absent intrusive medical procedure. There is a clear difference between the two.

Regarding telemarketers a few weeks ago, you may remember I ended up agreeing with your position.

When I said sex act, I was being sloppy with language. Consensual vaginal sex within a marriage is always moral, is it not? (Catholicism aside). Vaginal sex perpetrated through rape is never moral. The sex act is the same, the context is different, hence the moral conclusion is different.

Similarly for the others.

The point being that anal sex is no more immoral than vaginal sex, because neither has inherent morality. It is the context within which the act takes place that determines its morality.

Surely you would concede that is true for killing. Why is it that the morality of mere biological details can't also be contextually determined?

Jeff:

No. There is no context in which anal sex is moral.

Why?

Peter, agreed about morality, which is why I brought up Semmelweiss. Nobody has cared to justify that one here, have they?

There would be a reason for that.

Killing babies may be either immoral or impolite, but there is a kind of argument for it -- some people benefit to some extent.

But killing mothers? There's not even that much justification for that, is there?

The Catholics have a lot to answer for. Killing mothers is, in a way, the worst of all their crimes. Worse, anyhow, that anal sex.

Semmelweiss was an ignorance problem, which luckily isn't immoral or we'd all have a lot more to answer for--except for you and Jeff.

Arrogance, not ignorance. He told them what the relevant facts were. Their morality told them to disdain him.

So it was a moral problem after all.

As is usual with Christians, from at least the time of Galileo, they don't have to look through the telescope because their sacred texts have told them what's there already.

And if they're incorrect and other people die painful deaths because of that, and if we unchosen call them on it, do they repent? Never yet.