Evangelicals, birth control and the US elections

[Columnist]

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/10202

It is clear to even the most distant observer that family values are a big issue in United States politics. Among the Republicans vying for selection as presidential candidate so far two have been touched by sexual scandal: Herman Cain is out of the field but Newt Gingrich may survive.

There’s another interesting angle to the other remaining contenders, however, and that’s their large(ish) families. This was noted by New York Times columnist Mark Oppenheimer:

The Republican presidential field has produced a lot of babies. There is Mitt Romney, father of five sons. Ron Paul, an obstetrician by training, is also a father of five, and his campaign Web site credits him with bringing 4,000 babies into the world. Newt Gingrich and the recent dropout Rick Perry have only two children each, but Rick Santorum [pictured], who has said contraception is “not O.K.,” has seven children, and so does another former candidate, Jon M. Huntsman Jr.

This seems to be partly explained by religion -- Mormonism for Mitt Romney and Catholicism for Rick Santorum, for example. Does this make them more -- or less -- attractive to Republicans of other religious denominations?

Oppenheimer suggests that 50 years ago “a Santorum-size family would have been seen as a marker of exotic, sinister religiosity” by evangelical Protestants. Big families “were for immigrants and Catholics, or for the rural poor.” Since then, however, there’s been a big shift in evangelical thinking about contraception and big families -- witness the famous Duggar family (“19 kids & Counting”) and the Quiverfull movement.

Family scholar Allan Carlson (a Lutheran) has just published a book called Godly Seed: American Evangelicals Confront Birth Control, 1873-1973. He told the Times that as recently as 10 or 20 years ago Mr Santorum’s rejection of birth control “would have been an immediate no” for nearly all Protestants.

Today, even evangelicals who use contraception have a much better understanding of the moral and social objections to it. Jenell Paris, who teaches at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, is quoted by the Times:

“Our understanding of hormonal birth control methods — the pill, the patch, the ring — have changed,” said Dr. Paris, alluding to those who believe, on scant evidence, that these methods of birth control can contribute to long-term infertility. “Abortion politics have changed. Views of women in the workplace have changed. Feminism has changed. All that has contributed to a number of evangelicals embracing a no-birth-control policy, or at least making it comprehensible.”

Almost 40 years after Roe v Wade (anniversary yesterday) and the termination of nearly 60 million lives in the USA alone, the routineness of abortion in a contraceptive culture must surely be the major contributor to this change of mind.

[RuneX2]

It appears that Christianity is an evolutionary advantage, whereas atheism is a large detriment.

[Columnist]

It appears that Christianity is an evolutionary advantage, whereas atheism is a large detriment.
Yes. Oh, the irony. I understood this decades ago, but I couldn't muster the inner strength to be a hypocrite.

[Petr]

Yes. Oh, the irony. I understood this decades ago, but I couldn't muster the inner strength to be a hypocrite.
How old are you, approximately?

[Vindex]

The 40 million Mexicans and other darkies the Churches in America aid and import by the millions agree having large dependents gives them an edge.

[Columnist]

How old are you, approximately?
Forty. I understood this around twenty. Then I realized it might be preferable to bring others' birthrate down, then one's own up. You see, the Netherlands are rather crowded. And I saw the Vatican ganging up with Islam in the nineties, on these very issues, so having a large family to defeat the immigrants seemed to be a bit counterproductive. And I was busy with college, and afterwards, unstable jobs.

[Longinus]

If jesus-voters ruin Ron Paul's campaign I sincerely hope they'll get Obama for president again.
7wz6EAsLQ48&feature=youtu.be

[Ahknaton]

I saw Santorum on CNN last night being interviewed by "pig-faced Brit" Piers Morgan and he said that even though he is personally against contraception he wouldn't ever vote for legislation to ban it because he thinks it's an individual's personal choice. Standard moderate conservative boilerplate. So who cares really? People are carrying on like if he gets elected President he's going to make condoms illegal or something.

[Columnist]

If jesus-voters ruin Ron Paul's campaign I sincerely hope they'll get Obama for president again.
7wz6EAsLQ48&feature=youtu.be
Obama is strong on abortion in Africa.

[tricknologist]

I saw Santorum on CNN last night being interviewed by "pig-faced Brit" Piers Morgan and he said that even though he is personally against contraception he wouldn't ever vote for legislation to ban it because he thinks it's an individual's personal choice. Standard moderate conservative boilerplate. So who cares really? People are carrying on like if he gets elected President he's going to make condoms illegal or something.

That's because the American media is falsely trying to create that impression.

[Kodos]

This is a bs issue that nothing will ever be changed on.

[Kodos]

That's because the American media is falsely trying to create that impression.

The media is falsely trying to create the impression that Santorum is anything besides a corrupt establishment politician, hes a prolife democrat. And since being prolife is politically meaningless it makes him just a democrat. But the prolife voters are rubes...

Gingrich (and no I don't like his immigration stance either) is the only one the establishment really saw as a potential threat and every dirty trick in the book was used to prevent him from winning the nomination. Paul would be a threat if there was ever a remote chance of him winning, there never has been.

[Hartmann von Aue]

It's a good sign, in this sense: the snobbery of people who hate big families has been banished from public discourse in the USA. Leave it to wasps to have stigmatized the procreation of their own kind.

The bitch Margaret Sanger's influence is no longer so openly seen in Republican politics - as it was seen in the Bush family.

http://www.bartleby.com/1013/5.html

[Kodos]

It's a good sign, in this sense: the snobbery of people who hate big families has been banished from public discourse in the USA. Leave it to wasps to have stigmatized the procreation of their own kind.

The bitch Margaret Sanger's influence is no longer so openly seen in Republican politics - as it was seen in the Bush family.

http://www.bartleby.com/1013/5.html

Big families aren't bad per se but population growth is and who reproduces a lot should be selected based on eugenic criteria (iq should be the most important factor but not the only one). Hispanics should not be allowed to have a lot of kids, and definitely should not be subsidized for doing so.

[Hartmann von Aue]

Big families aren't bad per se but population growth is and who reproduces a lot should be selected based on eugenic criteria (iq should be the most important factor but not the only one). Hispanics should not be allowed to have a lot of kids, and definitely should not be subsidized for doing so.

Socially stigmatizing big families in the USA and in Europe only seriously influences the behavior of middle and upper class women.

The arguments in favor of race suicide are all linked, and all supported by the same groups, for the same ultimate purpose.

[Kodos]

Margaret Sanger actually was a eugenicist who hated blacks and hispanics.

[Columnist]

Socially stigmatizing big families in the USA and in Europe only seriously influences the behavior of middle and upper class women.

The arguments in favor of race suicide are all linked, and all supported by the same groups, for the same ultimate purpose.
Do you believe in wars of conquest?

[Hartmann von Aue]

And since being prolife is politically meaningless it makes him just a democrat. But the prolife voters are rubes...


If being pro-life is "politically meaningless" then reason would have it that being "pro-choice" is also meaningless. But it's very clear it isn't meaningless at all to those who love abortion.

It is true, that the actual political will to do anything about abortion does not exist in the Republican party. Which is why Romney is losing. But it's a safe bet Santorum will never do anything either.

The abortion problem isn't going to be solved in the courts or by juries trying abortionists and women.

It's going to be solved a different way.

[Rosarium]

who reproduces a lot should be selected based on eugenic criteria

But who decides that? Is it put to popular vote? Is it in the hands of a small cartel in charge of the government? What if they decide you shouldn't reproduce? How would you feel being dragged kicking and screaming into a government lab to be sterilised?

What if you're just not smart enough to reproduce? Hell why not just kill you? No, that wouldn't be economically smart. Better to castrate you and send to work in a labour camp. Then you can provide something for society..

Lovely ideal you have there mate.

[Columnist]

It's going to be solved a different way.
Like, or is that unfit to put on a forum?

[Columnist]

But who decides that? Is it put to popular vote? Is it in the hands of a small cartel in charge of the government? What if they decide you shouldn't reproduce? How would you feel being dragged kicking and screaming into a government lab to be sterilised?

What if you're just not smart enough to reproduce? Hell why not just kill you? No, that wouldn't be economically smart. Better to castrate you and send to work in a labour camp. Then you can provide something for society..

Lovely ideal you have there mate.
But in all honesty, Christianity and Islam had their fair share of castrations too.

[Allegheny]

It's a good sign, in this sense: the snobbery of people who hate big families has been banished from public discourse in the USA. Leave it to wasps to have stigmatized the procreation of their own kind.

The bitch Margaret Sanger's influence is no longer so openly seen in Republican politics - as it was seen in the Bush family.

http://www.bartleby.com/1013/5.html

WASPs, being a Nordic, pioneering race, require an expansive frontier to reproduce prolifically. In Germania, Tacitus recounts how the smoke from another man's would make the 'Auiones' (Saxon) shudder. Or take Daniel Boone, and his decampment to Missouri after the settling of Kentucky and Tennessee. Unsurprisingly, then, that the WASP fertility rate would drop below replacement first, as America became overcrowded.

[Columnist]

WASPs, being a Nordic, pioneering race, require an expansive frontier to reproduce prolifically. In Germania, Tacitus recounts how the smoke from another man's would make the 'Auiones' (Saxon) shudder. Or take Daniel Boone, and his decampment to Missouri after the settling of Kentucky and Tennessee. Unsurprisingly, then, that the WASP fertility rate would drop below replacement first, as America became overcrowded.
As I said, large families require wars of conquest. This is the basic problem with Christianity. First, they have large families. Then they conquer territory against their own rules, and then they feel guilty about it, and destroy their own society.

[Kuniklo Nigra]

I saw Santorum on CNN last night being interviewed by "pig-faced Brit" Piers Morgan and he said that even though he is personally against contraception he wouldn't ever vote for legislation to ban it because he thinks it's an individual's personal choice. Standard moderate conservative boilerplate. So who cares really? People are carrying on like if he gets elected President he's going to make condoms illegal or something.
Don't make con-dumbs illegal. Then maybe more men would start respecting themselves.

[Kuniklo Nigra]

But who decides that? Is it put to popular vote? Is it in the hands of a small cartel in charge of the government? What if they decide you shouldn't reproduce? How would you feel being dragged kicking and screaming into a government lab to be sterilised?

What if you're just not smart enough to reproduce? Hell why not just kill you? No, that wouldn't be economically smart. Better to castrate you and send to work in a labour camp. Then you can provide something for society..

Lovely ideal you have there mate.
Plan nothing? Care about nothing? Lovely ideal....

[Columnist]

Feminism castrates the intelligent.