NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Religion Dispatches
Post by PATRICIA MILLER
Reaffirming their fine tradition of looking the future squarely in the eye and then blinking and retreating to the comforting exegesis of the past, the have voted .
The U.S. Catholic Bishops’ vote to maintain their politically aggressive Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty for another three years signals that despite the warnings of Pope Francis to tone down the culture war stuff, the bishops are fully invested in their crusade against same-sex marriage and universal access to birth control.
And it’s no wonder, given the people they’re listening to for advice. On Thursday, the bishops will hear presentations on marriage from Helen Alvare, a former staffer and leading far-right proponent of the “contraceptive mentality” and its supposed dangers to women and marriage, and W. Bradford Wilcox, author of a controversial Washington Post op-ed which advised women to get married already so they wouldn’t get beaten or raped by their boyfriends (original headline: “One way to end violence against women? Stop taking lovers and get married”).
It’s the dream team of socially regressive conservative tripe on why marriage is good for everyone—except gay people, for whom it is very, very bad—and contraception is evil, largely because it allows women to avoid marrying their baby daddies.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.