What You Should Know About 'Monogamish' Relationships - by Joe Carter

In The Gospel Coalition

 

The Concept: Monogamish — A term coined by sex columnist Dan Savage to describe relationships in which a couple is emotionally intimate only with each other yet engages in sexual infidelities or group sexual activity. Monogamish couples can be sexually polyamorous but remain emotionally "monogamous." (Another term used for this phenomena is "San Francisco relationships.") Although the term can be used to describe both heterosexual and homosexual relationships, monogamish coupling is generally considered acceptable, even normative, within homosexual communities.

The Short Version: A study by the Center for HIV Educational Studies and Training, "Alternatives to Monogamy Among Gay Male Couples in a Community Survey: Implications for Mental Health and Sexual Risk", will be published in this February's issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior. The study surveyed over 800 gay and bisexual men in the New York City area. A preview of the report notes:

Dr. Parsons pointed out that "the diversity in types of non-monogamous relationships was interesting, and something that hasn't been explored very much in research studies. Typically gay men have been categorized as monogamous or not, and our data show that it is not so black and white." CHEST's survey indicated that about 60% were single. Of those partnered, about 58% were in monogamous relationships. Of those that were non-monogamous, 53% were in open relationships, and 47% were in "monogamish" relationships (i.e., couples that have sex with others as a couple such as "threeways" or group sex).
What seems apparent from the CHEST study is that same-sex romantic relationships can be healthy and happy, and that gay men can be "committed" to their long-term partners while still being sexual with other people. Dr. Parsons adds, "Our findings suggest that certain types of non-monogamous relationships - especially 'monogamish' ones - are actually beneficial to gay men, contrary to assumptions that monogamous relationships are always somehow inherently better."

In an article for the Huffington Post, gay-rights activist Zach Stafford reports on the study and adds:

Prince Charming may not be charming forever, and we may find ourselves waking up one day wanting to invite Aladdin or Prince Eric or Prince Phillip to join us in our bed, if only a few times a month. And if our relationship is not monogamous but more "monogamish," we can still be happy. Indeed, we may find that monogamy isn't what we wanted all along.

A significant percentage of persons in same-sex sexual partnerships, including those who advocate for the legal recognition of same-sex "marriage", do not view monogamy or sexual exclusivity as part of the meaning of marriage. Despite their use of the term "monogamy," many are referring to "monogamish" relationships. This misleading shift in language leads many Americans to misunderstand what it is they are really supporting when they advocate for same-sex marriage. Marriage is not being redefined in a way that simply includes same-sex couples, but redefined in a way that excludes sexual fidelity as an essential component of the marital relationship.

The Long Version: One of the unspoken assumptions in the debate over same-sex marriage is that monogamy is equally valued by both homosexual and heterosexual couples. While far too many heterosexuals opt for a form of serial monogamy—marriage, divorce, remarriage—it is still generally understood that sexual fidelity is to be expected within the bounds of marriage. The same assumption, however, is not necessarily true within homosexual relations.

Many same-sex marriage advocates will naturally find such a claim shocking, if not scurrilous. The "It's about love" crowd have often been strong on empathy while weak on their understanding of how homosexual relationships tend to differ from those of heterosexuals. (It also seems to have escaped their notice that marriage may not be the only term that homosexual activists want to redefine.) But this isn't a controversial idea—at least it wasn't until recently.

Until a few years ago, most homosexuals and gay-rights activists freely admitted that the traditional view of monogamy was a heterosexual ideal that did not apply to homosexual relationships. Terry Mattingly notes in a Get Religion post:

As a visiting gay theologian once told me during a conference at [Iliff School of Theology], very few gay, lesbian and bisexual Christians have what he called a "twin rocking chairs forever" definition of monogamy. That was just too restricting, he said. Most gays, he said, believe that it is possible to be "faithful" to one partner and, thus, "monogamous," while continuing to have sexual experiences with others.

Mattingly also references a quote from a Scripps Howard column he wrote in 2000:

"Monogamy" isn't such a scary word, once people get the hang of redefining it to fit the realities of modern life, according to gay provocateur Dan Savage.
"The sexual model that straight people have created really doesn't work," said the nationally syndicated columnist, in a New York Times Magazine piece on post-modern sex. "All it does is force people to lie. ... In this society, we view monogamy like we view virginity, one incident and it's over, the relationship is over."
Heterosexual couples, he said, should relax and learn from homosexuals. Relationships must grow and evolve. "I know gay couples who have been together for 35 years. They have separate bedrooms. Sometimes they sleep together and sometimes they sleep with other people, but they're a great couple," he said.

Of course that was a decade ago, when homosexual activists were more once open about this redefinition of monogamy. Back then journalist and blogger Andrew Sullivan felt safe to admit in his book Virtually Normal:

There is more likely to be greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman. . . .The truth is, homosexuals are not entirely normal; and to flatten their varied and complicated lives into a single, moralistic model is to miss what is essential and exhilarating about their otherness.

And in a 1998 issue of The Advocate we find this full-length article titled, "Monogamy: Is it for us?", and subtitled "The Advocate examines the controversial subject of monogamy from many angles":

One of the hottest debates in today's gay world involves the m word. Is it for us, we wonder, or is it just aping straight society? Is it a basic human drive or a dumb social construct? And, of course, each of us wonders, Is it for me?
But this m word is not marriage. It's monogamy. Etymologically, the word means "one marriage." So how can it possibly apply to a group of people who are not legally allowed to wed?
[. . .]
"A commitment is something made by two people, not by a minister or license," Carmichael says.
But, in fact, two men or two women making a commitment is different from a man and a woman doing it. Evolutionary scientists say males and females set different standards for sexual partners. They argue that since sperm is cheap, males instinctively want to spread their seed among many partners, but eggs are precious, so females seek copulation with one mate who will be a good provider. Socially, that results in compromises--marriage and adultery--but what happens when two people of the same gender don't have to meet in the middle?
One result might be the old joke: What do two lesbians take on their second date? A U-Haul. What about two gay men? What second date?
Thus, says neuroscientist Simon LeVay, gays and straights can be seen as biologically similar: The males share an interest in casual sex, while the females want to settle down. He cites studies from San Francisco in the pre-AIDS 1970s showing that the average gay male had had 500 partners up to the time of the survey interview; the average lesbian, fewer than ten.
[. . .]
Michael Cohen, a psychotherapist in Hartford, Conn., thinks monogamy is a social construct derived from religion and may or may not be natural.
[. . .]
Others disagree. Frances Donovan, who has "experience on both sides of the monogamy fence" and conducts workshops on that topic at educator and youth conferences, believes nonmonogamy is a negative definition. She prefers polyamory—the ability to love more than one person at a time—and says the key to successful polyamory is open, honest communication. At one workshop, participants listed several benefits of polyamory, including freedom, love, happiness, and trust.
Which brings us to two specific types of polyamory: threesomes and open relationships. Perhaps surprisingly, some of the strongest advocates for monogamy view threesomes with equanimity.
"They can be shared experiences that couples go through together," Berzon says. "The key is that it has to be both partners' choice. If it is, my job becomes helping them think about the best ways to make it work."
"There's a difference between emotional monogamy; and sexual monogamy," argues Cohen. "If a couple have threesomes occasionally and are still committed to each other, they can usually separate the two."
[. . .]
Most people draw the line at cheating--that is, having outside relationships without the knowledge or consent of one's partner. "The rules are simple: If you are in a monogamous relationship, you don't cheat," says Jeffrey Denke, 26, a video producer. "It is a matter of self-control and will." The best way to combat the desire to cheat, he says, is to "explore a variety of sexual encounters together. Third partners and other couples are a great way to add variety to sex."
Yet Ann Northrop, a lesbian activist and coanchor of the Gay USA cable TV news show, sees the debate about monogamy as "a window of opportunity" for gays to be honest about our behavior--far more honest, in fact, than straights, who from U.S. presidents on down have never been paragons of monogamy.
"We don't have the hypocritical, hierarchical heterosexual system of rewards" that flow to folks in monogamous, committed relationships, she says. "However, we also have not talked openly about what we want from a relationship, where sex and intimacy fit in, and what may or may not work for us." Now, Northrop believes, is the time.

If you're wondering why the media didn't mention this concept of "monogamish" relationships until the same-sex marriage gained popular acceptance, the New York Times has the answer:

As the trial phase of the constitutional battle to overturn the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage concludes in federal court, gay nuptials are portrayed by opponents as an effort to rewrite the traditional rules of matrimony. Quietly, outside of the news media and courtroom spotlight, many gay couples are doing just that, according to groundbreaking new research.
A study to be released next month is offering a rare glimpse inside gay relationships and reveals that monogamy is not a central feature for many. Some gay men and lesbians argue that, as a result, they have stronger, longer-lasting and more honest relationships. And while that may sound counterintuitive, some experts say boundary-challenging gay relationships represent an evolution in marriage — one that might point the way for the survival of the institution.
New research at San Francisco State University reveals just how common open relationships are among gay men and lesbians in the Bay Area. The Gay Couples Study has followed 556 male couples for three years — about 50 percent of those surveyed have sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners.
That consent is key. "With straight people, it's called affairs or cheating," said Colleen Hoff, the study's principal investigator, "but with gay people it does not have such negative connotations."
The study also found open gay couples just as happy in their relationships as pairs in sexually exclusive unions, Dr. Hoff said. A different study, published in 1985, concluded that open gay relationships actually lasted longer.
None of this is news in the gay community, but few will speak publicly about it. Of the dozen people in open relationships contacted for this column, no one would agree to use his or her full name, citing privacy concerns. They also worried that discussing the subject could undermine the legal fight for same-sex marriage.

Unlike the mainstream media, when it comes to admitting the true agenda of the gay rights movement, The Advocate can be refreshingly honest. "We often protest when homophobes insist that same sex marriage will change marriage for straight people too," says the magazine in a 2011 article. "But in some ways, they're right. Here's how gay relationships will change the institution—but for the better." (Note: The article itself contains some crude language, though I don't include those in the following excrpts.)

Anti-equality right-wingers have long insisted that allowing gays to marry will destroy the sanctity of "traditional marriage," and, of course, the logical, liberal party-line response has long been "No, it won't." But what if—for once—the sanctimonious crazies are right? Could the gay male tradition of open relationships actually alter marriage as we know it? And would that be such a bad thing? With divorce rates at an all-time high and news reports full of famous marriages crumbling at the hand of flagrant infidelities (see: Schwarzenegger, Arnold), perhaps now is the perfect time for the gays to conduct a little marriage makeover.
Welcome to Queer (Roving) Eye for the Monogamous Straight Couple Lie, brought to you in part by writer Dan Savage, who coined the term monogamish to signify committed relationships in which the partners are, he explains, "mostly monogamous, but there's a little allowance for the reality of desire for others and a variety of experiences and adventure and possibility."

The typical response by straight same-sex marriage supporters is that while such "monogmish" relationships may be common, their committed gay friends would never dream of engaging in such infidelity. Or so they may think:

Even many gay male couples, who Savage describes as having "perfected nonmonogamy," fear disclosing that their relationship is anything but one-on-one. Gary (not his real name) is out in every area of his life, and his family is completely supportive. "But I don't tell my family, even my brother—who I'm incredibly close with—that I have sex outside of the relationship with Ben," his partner of 14 years, he says. "I have never said that to him."
Gary and Ben, who live in Los Angeles, won't reveal their real names because Ben has a high-profile career in television. "We have too much to lose," Gary says. "But we also don't want people passing judgment on us." Which is why they don't even tell most of their friends.
Sex therapist Timaree Schmit says she can understand gay couples' desire to conform—at least outwardly—to the kind of conventional relationship that society deems "deserving" of marriage rights. "It's been a big part of campaigning for marriage equality to repeatedly prove the 'normalcy' and stability of same-sex couples. People may feel pressure to make their relationship fit into a more acceptable box."

If only heterosexual society wasn't so prudish and didn't defined "normalcy" so narrowly, then gay men could truly be themselves:

Schmit says that the sexual context in which many gay men initiate relationships can smooth the way to normalizing nonmonogamy, and that's not frequently how straight relationships kick off. "Plus, the steam room clause," she says, referring to the one among some men in which sex at the gym does not count, "doesn't really apply too well to straight people."
[. . .]
This is where gay male couples and Savage's outspoken role come in. "More than anything, gay marriage creates opportunities to broaden the conversation about marriage," says Sitron. "I don't think gay men are [necessarily] going to bring something [new] to marriage, but they are going to change the conversation about marriage."
"I really enjoy sex, and I like looking at porn, and I like sexy guys, and I love Ben," declares the happily committed and nonmonogamous Gary. "When [it became clear that] we could figure out a way to have all of these things together, without hurting each other, I thought, That's a good goal." [emphasis in original]

"A way to have all of these things together." Sure, why not? Why shouldn't they be able to have a marriage license that includes a steam room clause? If that is the "good goal"—the gay man's eudemonic objective—then who are we to say that they shouldn't have it all—even if the "all" includes porn, a partner, and polyamorous playmates?

We've finally reached the point in the debate where it is no longer possible to be self-deluding about what same-sex marriage advocacy requires: If you support same-sex marriage you are tacitly endorsing non-monogamous marital relationships.

For years, heterosexual supporters of the cause were able to fool themselves into thinking that what gay rights activists wanted was parity with straight relationships. Then, when it became obvious that many homosexuals reject the "heteronormative restriction" of monogamy in marriage, the advocates proposed a two-track compromise: straight marriage would still be expected to be monogamous while gay marriage could be as polyamorous as they wanted.

But it doesn't work that way.

There cannot be a "separate but equal" basis for "marital" relationships, with heterosexuals expected to adhere to a standard of sexual fidelity while gay couples are allowed to redefine monogamy to include polyamourous sexual escapades. The lower standard will eventually prevail, with the stricter "sex with spouse only" being a valid option, but not an ideal—and certainly not the norm. A significant percentage of heterosexual men will follow the example of their gay brethren and simply refuse to "marry" if it comes with an expectation of sexual exclusivity. After all, why shouldn't they have the same marriage rights as gay men?

Since women have the most to lose from such arrangements, they may prefer to retain the one-man/one-woman rule. But it doesn't matter what they want. In every struggle for expansion of man-made rights, some people win and some people lose. Straight women will simply have to accept the loss for the greater good of normalizing homosexual conduct and preferences. If monogamy is not considered a necessary component of same-sex marriage, then it will only be a matter of time before the leavening effect of language reduces the cultural significance of monogamy in all marriages. Refusing to allow a husband to take a lover will be viewed as backward and old-fashioned as refusing to allow a wife to work outside the home.

This is the future that many advocates of same-sex marriage are, whether the realize it or not, are fighting for. But is this really what they want. Are they really ready to redefine marriage in a way that leaves out monogamy?

Can the President Have a Marriage Agenda Without Talking About What Marriage Is? - by Ryan T. Anderson

In The Public Discourse
 

“The President’s Marriage Agenda for the Forgotten Sixty Percent,” despite the impression its title might give, was released Sunday not by the Obama administration but by the Institute for American Values and the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. It is a timely, compelling, and important report, but it falls short in a basic way: it never once even attempts to say what marriage is. But you cannot advance a marriage agenda without knowing what marriage is and why it matters for public policy, as my co-authors and I argue in our new book, What Is Marriage?

The leadership of the Institute for American Values, after embracing the redefinition of marriage in a high-profile change of heart earlier this year, hopes this report launches “a new conversation on marriage.” The authors urge political leaders to encourage “community-based and focused public service announcements that convey the truth about marriage, stability and child wellbeing to the next generation of parents.”

Well, what is the truth about marriage?

The report rightly notes that “marriage is not merely a private arrangement; it is also a complex social institution.” But the report never says what this complex institution is, or why it ought to be governed by the standard marital norms of monogamy, sexual exclusivity, and a pledge of permanence—norms that many leading defenders of redefining marriage explicitly reject. Yet without these norms—and the intelligible basis that grounds them—marriage can’t do the work that the authors want it to do.

That is important work indeed, as the report explains. It helpfully documents the retreat from marriage afflicting today’s middle class and how fixing this “is the social challenge for our times.” While in the 1980s “only 13 percent of the children of moderately educated mothers were born outside of marriage,” today that figure has “risen to a whopping 44 percent.” Indeed, the majority of births to women under thirty “now occur outside of marriage.”

Although some have tried to characterize the disappearance of marriage as a problem facing only lower-class America or the black community, the report notes that “family instability can now be found in Middle America almost as frequently as it is among the least educated sector of the population.” And the disappearance of marriage has social costs, especially increased poverty and decreased social mobility, as “researchers are now finding that the disappearance of marriage in Middle America is tracking with the disappearance of the middle class in the same communities. . . . This decline of marriage in Middle America imperils the middle class and fosters a society of winners and losers.”

As a result, more children grow up without the care and support of their mother and father—and it’s costing everyone: “The loss of social opportunity for these children and their families, and the national cost to taxpayers when stable families fail to form—about $112 billion annually, or more than $1 trillion per decade, by one cautious estimate—are significant.” As the report notes, economist Ben Scafidi and his team of researchers found that “if family fragmentation were reduced by just 1 percent, U.S. taxpayers would save an estimated $1.1 billion annually.”

The authors of the report don’t suggest giving up on policy, writing that “it is only with respect to marriage formation that the policy world seems to have decided that very little or nothing can be done.” This isn’t true, as my colleagues at the Heritage Foundation and others have promoted policies to strengthen marriage for quite some time, most recently Robert Rector’s special report, “Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty.”

The various policy proposals in “The President’s Marriage Agenda” deserve more sustained attention and consideration than I can take here. But a few comments are in order. The authors encourage President Obama to embrace his position as “a cultural leader who can inspire citizens, especially young people,” because “if we are to strengthen marriage and families in America, ultimately this will happen because young people want to bond with one another and give their children the gift of their father and mother in a lasting marriage.” But how can President Obama stress the importance of fathers and mothers while supporting the redefinition of marriage to exclude sexual complementarity?

The report’s fourth recommendation, “End Anonymous Fatherhood,” notes that “the anonymous man who provided his sperm walks away with no obligation.” Although a relatively small percentage of parents “use sperm donation or similar technologies to get pregnant, the cultural power of the idea that it’s acceptable deliberately to create a fatherless child and for biological fathers to walk away from their children is real.”

The authors propose that the United States ban anonymity in sperm donation “and reinforce the consistent message that fathers matter.” But how does marriage policy reinforce that message if it redefines marriage to say that mothers and fathers—one of each—are optional for marriage? How does redefining marriage to include lesbian relationships not further incentivize the type of anonymous sperm donation and resulting fatherless children that the authors protest?

Regardless of your stance on redefining marriage, the report argues, you can “talk about gay marriage—and then talk about why marriage is important for the vast majority of people who identify as heterosexual and whose sexual lives quite often produce children.” But is this really true?

After all, it isn’t just the legal title of marriage that encourages adherence to marital norms. There is nothing magical about the word “marriage.” Instead, marriage laws work by embodying and promoting a true vision of what marriage is that makes sense of those norms as a coherent whole.

Redefining marriage would abandon the norm of male-female sexual complementarity as an essential characteristic of marriage. Making that optional would also make other essential characteristics—such as monogamy, exclusivity, and permanence—optional, as my co-authors and I argue in What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense. We show how this is increasingly confirmed by the rhetoric and arguments of those who would redefine marriage, and by the policies that their more candid leaders embrace.

I should note that I presented some of this evidence in this post last week at Ricochet, quoting LGBT leaders Andrew Sullivan, Dan Savage, Victoria Brownworth, Michelangelo Signorile, New York University Professor Judith Stacey, and University of Calgary Professor Elizabeth Brake, as they explicitly rejected traditional norms of marriage.

Indeed, the most interesting—and revealing—comments during my week at Ricochet  were from those who said marriage is simply whatever sort of interpersonal relationship consenting adults—be they two or ten in number—want it to be: sexual or platonic, sexually exclusive or open, temporary or permanent.

That idea sounds like the abolition of marriage. Marriage is left with no essential features, no fixed core as a social reality—it is simply whatever consenting adults want it to be. Some who see this logic, thinking that marriage has no form and serves no social purpose, conclude that the government should get out of the marriage business.

If so, how will society protect the needs of children—the prime victims of our non-marital sexual culture—without government growing more intrusive and more expensive?

Separating the bearing and rearing of children from marriage burdens children first and foremost, as well as the whole community. It’s the community that often must step in to provide (more or less directly) for their wellbeing and upbringing. A child born and raised outside marriage is six times more likely to experience poverty than a child in an intact family—and therefore welfare expenditures grow. So by encouraging the norms of marriage—monogamy, sexual exclusivity, and permanence—the state strengthens civil society and reduces its own role.

But marital norms make no sense—as matters of principle—if marriage is redefined. There is no reason of principle why emotional union should be permanent. Or limited to two persons, rather than larger ensembles. Or sexual, much less sexually exclusive. Or inherently oriented to family life and shaped by its demands.

If marriage isn’t founded on a comprehensive union made possible by the sexual complementarity of a man and a woman, then why can’t it occur among more than two people? If marital union isn’t founded on such sexual acts, then why ought it be sexually exclusive? If marriage isn’t a comprehensive union and has no intrinsic connection to children, then why ought it be permanent?

This isn’t to say that couples couldn’t decide to live out these norms where temperament or taste so motivated them, but that there is no reason of principle to demand it of them. So legally enshrining this alternative view of marriage would undermine the norms whose link to the common good justifies state action in the first place.

This highlights the central questions in this debate: what marriage is and why the state recognizes it. It’s not that the state shouldn’t achieve its basic purpose while obscuring what marriage is. Rather, it can’t. Only when policy gets the nature of marriage right do we reap the civil society benefits of recognizing marriage.

The future of our country, then, relies upon the future of marriage. The future of marriage depends upon citizens’ understanding of what it is and why it matters—and demanding that government policies support, not undermine, true marriage. Unfortunately, “The President’s Marriage Agenda” overlooks these questions. How successful can a “new conversation on marriage” be when its leaders can’t even say what marriage is?

‘The Notebook’ director says if we back gay marriage, why not incest? - by Ben Johnson

HOLLYWOOD, September 11, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) –  Defenders of marriage have long said if the institution is redefined beyond one man and one woman, there is no clear end to the new combinations that could be considered “marriage.” A growing body of evidence shows the popular culture, led by Hollywood elites, do not intend to stop with same-sex unions.

Nick Cassavetes, the director of the romantic film The Notebook, told reporters at the debut of his new film that incest is no different than allowing same-sex weddings.

“Love who you want, isn’t that what we say? Gay marriage – love who you want,” he said.

“If you’re not having kids, who gives a damn?” the son of legendary director John Cassavetes and actress Gena Rowlands asked in an interview with The Wrap while premiering his new film, Yellow, which features an incestuous affair between a brother and sister. “If it’s your brother or sister it’s super-weird, but if you look at it, you’re not hurting anybody except every single person who freaks out because you’re in love with one another.” 

Click “like” if you want to defend true marriage.

 

Meanwhile, a celebrity gossip rag has become the latest publication to support polygamy and polyandry.

In a column entitled “Three Shouldn’t be a Crowd,” the digital tabloid The Frisky stated, “Polygamy and polyamory get a bad rap.” 

Carrie Nelson wrote, “Opening marriages and expanding what makes a marriage…may well end up saving relationships and the institution as a whole.”

“Believe me, I’m not some undercover agent trying to bring down the institution of marriage from within. If anything, I feel so strongly about marriage equality including polygamy because I love marriage,” Nelson said. 

The call for broadening the number of people in a marriage has intensified since a judge in Sao Paolo, Brazil, registered a three-person “stable union” last month.  

The decision led UK Guardian writer Jean Hannah Edelstein to ask, “If three, or four, or 17 people want to marry each other simultaneously and equally, why should they not be granted the same status as two people who want to become a legal family?” Banning such an arrangement would be “a bit illiberal,” she said. 

The publicity does not surprise Austin Nimocks of the Alliance Defending Freedom. He told NPR in May that if marriage is “about adults and not the kids that flow from procreative relationships, then from a policy standpoint you have to ask the question, then why can’t three or more adults be just as loving and committed to each other?” 

As the skeptical host listened, Nimocks said, “If it’s about the procreative relationships that produced and raised the next generation and we keep it a child-centered institution, then the risk of polygamy and plural marriage does not exist.”

The “Contraceptive Mentality” and its Consequences

by Brian Clowes

In Lifeissues.net

What is the Contraceptive Mentality?

A mentality or mindset is a set of beliefs and assumptions which directs and informs the moral aspects of a person's life. Especially in our age of mass communications, mentalities of entire populations can be manufactured, propagandized and then lived out by large numbers of people - even without their being aware of it.

A beneficial mentality is what might be called a "battle mentality," where people are willing to sacrifice comfort, possessions, or even life itself in order to achieve a higher goal such as the good of another or the good of society. A "service mentality," likewise, can define a person who consistently places the spiritual and temporal needs of others, especially those in need, before his own desires. Both of these praiseworthy mentalities will prevail throughout a truly Christian civilization.

On the other hand, a negative or harmful mentality is a habitual attitude that is based on error or selfishness, for example, and which can then disregard truths or realities that conflict with one's customary and often unreflective behavior. Harmful mentalities lead to dangerous and disordered behavior; long-term consequences are usually ignored, when pointed out, as the person is mainly concerned with short-term needs or situations.

Harmful mentalities have been manufactured today on a large scale and they continue to be increasingly disseminated with deliberate intent, at every level of society, and with catastrophic consequences. This is particularly true with the lies of the massively funded "culture of death" (so-named by Pope John Paul II) - whose malicious propaganda now permeates just about every country on earth. Large numbers of people have become so saturated with lies that very harmful attitudes and mentalities have resulted. One important example of a dangerous and widespread erroneous mindset that is crippling and de-constructing contemporary civilization is the "contraceptive mentality."

The Contraceptive Mentality Relentlessly Spreads.

One of the identifying marks of any moral evil is that it can spread effortlessly, like a bucket of filthy motor oil poured into a pristine pond. Because of our wounded nature, we must vigilantly guard and fight against the world's seductions that appeal to our own sinful tendencies, or else we ourselves can easily fall into these without even being aware of our slow descent into error and corruption.

The "contraceptive mentality" has been increasingly drilled into the hearts and minds of people everywhere. In fact, the entire world is swimming in a sea of contraceptive advertising and propaganda: in magazines, on television, at the movies, on the radio, on billboards, and in our schools. Sex education classes in public schools usually cover all of the contraceptive methods in detail. The message is insidiously and relentlessly drilled into people's heads: "Contraception is an integral part of the modern lifestyle. Everyone is doing it and it is your obligation to do it if you are a responsible person."

As contraception has become more universally accepted, a corresponding and terrible downward spiral has occurred. In countries where contraception is common, generations have grown up aware of the fact that their parents use contraception; and unfortunately, contracepting parents tend to beget unchaste teenagers, as Father Paul Marx, the founder of Human Life International, liked to say. And especially since the unleashing of "the Pill" on the world in 1960, the disintegration of moral values on every level has been astonishing.

The contraceptive mentality has inflicted its poison deep into family life and into the Church through vocal dissenters, as well as those who are ignorant. If young people know that their parents have separated the sexual act from procreation (which is what contraception does), why should they not do the same? If the faithful rarely (if ever) hear from their priests that the use of contraception is seriously sinful and physically dangerous, how will the people ever hear the light of truth?

Amidst such an atmosphere of nearly universal error, our children grow into adulthood and are increasingly molded with the false mindset that using contraception is "being responsible." The tendency has developed where married (or, many times, unmarried) couples thus become accustomed to using contraception, and even eventually see it as an integral part of their "lifestyle" - which will always be irresponsible and selfish as long as they are contracepting. Unfortunately, most "modern" couples in the Western world would no sooner give up contraception for natural fertility regulation than they would give up their cars in favor of bicycles, even though the latter course in both cases is healthier for both the society and the individual.

Catholic Church Teaching on Contraception.

In the face of the omnipresence of the contraceptive mentality, it is important to understand what contraception is and how it is so harmful and ultimately destructive. The marital act has two important purposes: unitive and procreative (Humanae Vitae, #12), which we can also call "bonding and babies." If either the unitive or the procreative aspect of the marital act is discarded, the other is seriously damaged; the very purpose and promise of both the marital act and the marriage itself remain unfulfilled. This is a serious disorder that is thereby inflicted in the heart of marriage, in the most intimate aspects of human love, and in society, therefore, as a whole.

Prevention of children has reached a high level of technological expertise in our day. Sexual sterilization of the man or the woman (which, as a form of mutilation deprives a person of the generative faculty, is immoral) is fairly easily achieved through surgery. Additionally, there are two general classes of the artificial and immoral means of birth prevention (also erroneously known as "birth control" - which promotes neither birth nor control): those that are contraceptive in nature and those that are abortifacient.

Contraceptive devices place a barrier between the sperm and the egg. These include the condom, the cervical cap, and the contraceptive sponge. Abortifacients are chemicals that work in three ways, including preventing the blastocyst (what some people improperly refer to as the "fertilized egg") from implanting in the uterus. These include the birth control pill, the Norplant and Jadelle insertables, the Depo-Provera shot, and the intrauterine device, or IUD.

Because any form of contraception involves the willful crippling of one of the body's natural functions - that is, procreation - the Catholic Church teaches that this is intrinsically disordered. The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), and any mutilation of its functions is gravely sinful, the same as putting out an eye or cutting off a thumb.

From the time of its founding, the Catholic Church has universally condemned contraception. Athenagoras, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, Barnabas, St. Basil the Great, Caesarius, Clement of Alexandria, Ephraem the Syrian, Epiphanius, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, Hippolytus, Lactantius, Minucius Felix, Origen of Alexandria, Tertullian, and the assembled Bishops at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD were some of the Early Church Fathers who wrote and spoke against contraception.

As the various Protestant denominations formed, their founders and leaders also condemned contraception in the most forceful terms imaginable. For example, John Calvin called contraception "monstrous," and John Wesley said it was "very displeasing to God, and the evidence of vile affections."

Until 1930, all Christian churches were unanimous in their fearless opposition to all of the artificial means of birth prevention, but during this year, Resolution 15 of the Anglican Bishop's Lambeth Conference accepted contraception for the first time "where there is a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood." Interestingly, the use of contraception was considered so disordered at this time that even the secular press and psychiatrists (including Sigmund Freud) spoke out against it. Mahatma Gandhi made exactly the same eerily accurate prophecies that Pope Paul VI would make three decades later in Humanae Vitae when he said that

Artificial methods are like putting a premium on vice. They make men and women reckless. ... Nature is relentless and will have full revenge for any such violation of her laws. Moral results can only be produced by moral restraints. If artificial methods become the order of the day, nothing but moral degradation can be the result. … As it is, man has sufficiently degraded women for his lust, and artificial methods, no matter how well-meaning the advocates may be, will still further degrade her.

In other words, God always forgives, man sometimes forgives, but nature never forgives.

As the great beacon of truth for the world, the Catholic Church stands firmly against contraception. She knows that She cannot change the immutable law of God, but can only recognize it and teach it. The Church is also the guardian of our understanding of the Natural Law, which is written in our hearts and in creation. Since the Natural Law was given to us by God, the Church does not have the authority to change its fundamental moral principles (the Church, of course, does clarify certain matters in the light of new knowledge, but the fundamental precepts of the Natural Law in Church teaching remain unchanged).

Some prominent groups that dissent from Church teachings claim that "most people use contraception," and that the Church must adapt to the modern world. This argument is absolutely irrelevant. The sinfulness of an act is not determined by popular vote; it is determined by the Magisterium, the teaching authority of the Catholic Church.

Many who use contraception claim that they are only "following their own consciences." However, it is only permissible to follow one's conscience when that conscience is properly formed and the conclusions reached are in accord with the teachings of the Church. As Pope Pius XII said, "The conscience is not a teacher, it is a pupil." We are never permitted to choose to commit an evil act, or to justify our evil act as acting "according to our conscience."

How Contraception Actually Leads to More, Not Less, Abortion.

Attempts to solve difficult ethical problems with technology alone, without the light of God's truth, will always reap harmful fruits. Contraception is perhaps one of the most vivid examples of this important reality because it actually leads to more, not less, abortion. While this seems to be a contradiction since contraception is designed to prevent conception (and theoretically to make abortion "unnecessary"), since the use of contraception requires a disordered outlook on human life and sexuality, this "contraceptive mentality" of selfishness, disregard for the preciousness of human life and the dignity of marriage, always leads to an increasing "need" for abortion. Let us review the two main reasons why contraception actually increases the prevalence of abortion.

The first reason is that contracepting couples have espoused an attitude and behavior that adopts a purely unnatural or technological "solution" to the "problem" of preventing pregnancy. When the contraceptive method fails, the couple easily feels automatically entitled to another unnatural and purely technological solution - abortion. The whole human dynamic of life-giving love, in a context of the covenant of marriage, becomes degraded, mechanized, de-personalized, and trivialized such that when there is an "unplanned" pregnancy, the couple feels failed by their artificial "system," views the baby not as a gift from God, but as an impersonal intruder, and so they seek another mechanical, degrading "solution" for this "system failure" - who is a human being.

This is the "contraceptive mentality" in its frighteningly stark and destructive reality. Here we can see clearly that contraception promotes the evil attitude that children are merely "objects" or commodities of someone's "wanting" or "not wanting," subject to the tyranny of their parents' whims, "choices," "lifestyles," or convenience. It is easy to see how the deep-seated selfishness and utilitarianism - often unto murderous abortion - that are always present with contraception-minded people, are a grave threat to all authentic human love, marriage and society. The contraceptive mentality poses a significant threat to the future peace, harmony and sustainability, on all levels of any society where it takes root.

The second reason that contraception leads to more abortion is that it simply does not work. It is documented in the United States, for example, that well over half of all women seeking abortion were using contraception when they became pregnant. There are two million contraceptive failures each year in the USA, primarily among teenagers.

Every one of the more than one hundred nations that have abortion-on-demand began by legalizing contraception. Since contraception fails so often, it automatically leads to a demand for abortion, even if it is illegal. Well funded and agenda-driven international population control groups, with the assistance of native pro-abortionists, then step in. They manufacture powerful propaganda about pitiful (and false) stories of hundreds or even so-called thousands of women who are all allegedly dying because of "back-alley"/illegal abortions, and these death peddlers then demand that abortion be legalized. Of course, the same people who were doing abortions before it was legal then do them when it is legal.

Malcolm Potts, former Medical Director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, accurately predicted four decades ago that "As people turn to contraception, there will be a rise, not a fall, in the abortion rate."

The Contraceptive Mentality Also Leads to Other Evils.

Because of the importance of the contraception issue, before God and man, contraception can serve as a truly "keystone issue" for many people when they come to the point of deciding whether or not they desire to follow the teachings of the Catholic Church. The contraceptive issue usually very much determines a person's opinions and attitudes on all of the other life and family issues. When Catholics contracept, they are usually well aware that they are in defiance of Church teachings; and while the first step is always the hardest, they can soon reject Church teachings in other areas of morality as well. And once a person, Catholic or non-Catholic, has adopted the aberrant contraceptive mentality, other disordered views and behaviors follow in their wake.

It is easy to point out some examples of the terrible cascade effect that inevitably results after the two essential elements (unitive and procreative) of the marital act are separated. After all, if the procreative aspect can be discarded, why not the unitive? Thus, it is easy to see that both high rates of divorce and abortion rapidly follow the widespread acceptance of contraception. Another deadly step in the downward spiral after widespread contraception and abortion is the infanticide of handicapped infants. And euthanasia, or the "mercy killing" of the elderly, is never far behind.

And lastly, for our purposes here, we can see also that if the procreative aspect of the marital act can be discarded, then it matters not who is united with whom. Thus we are seeing an epidemic sexual license and promiscuity among all age groups, and this is now degenerating even more severely such that there is an increasing push, even through the United Nations on a global scale, for the so-called legitimacy of homosexual "rights" and relationships and even "marriage" - where two men or two women may get legally "married" to each other. Not surprisingly, the acceptance of homosexual "marriage" by several nations has now led to polygamists demanding the same rights. After all, if two men can get married, why not a man and several women - or a woman and several men?

All of these current aberrations have their roots in the contraceptive mentality - which contradicts the Natural Law and which adopts the unnatural and disordered separation between the unitive and procreative purposes of the marital act, in the context of a potentially fruitful marriage between one man and one woman. Understandably, it is very difficult for people who are against abortion but for contraception to debate against these obvious and vast consequences that result from the acceptance of the single evil of contraception.

We Are Happier When We Follow God's Divine Law.

The solution to all of this is obvious. We can only contain today's evil and disorder by teaching people that the following of God's law, as expressed in Natural Law and as taught by the Church, is the only way to stable families, communities, and nations. We cannot maintain a healthy and strong society by simply ignoring Natural Law or virtue or by trying to suppress the consequences of man's disordered actions with technological and even murderous "fixes" - that only serve to increase vice and deepen the degeneration.

Contracepting people offer many rationalizations and defense mechanisms for the unnaturalness of their self-imposed sterility, but the separation of sex from procreation never delivers the so-called "happiness" that is propagandized. Contraception is intrinsically disordered and in conflict with the very essence of what it means to be human: made in the image of God, made to love and be loved in exclusivity, made to love and be open fruitfulness in fidelity. The truth of the matter is that the contraceptive mentality entrenches people in selfishness and, as such, contracepting people cannot truly love or attain true happiness. One very interesting and concrete illustration of this is that people who abstain from sex before marriage, and remain faithful and open to fruitfulness after marriage, have a divorce rate of about three to six percent, according to a range of studies; those who are sexually active before marriage and use contraception have a divorce rate of more than fifty percent.

Another sad phenomenon that reflects the natural consequences of the contraception lie is that women who have been on the Pill or similar steroids for many years, and who then finally decide that they are "ready" for a child, discover that they cannot conceive. Every year, thousands of these women are stunned to find that their fertility has been permanently damaged, and they feel compelled to resort to hugely expensive and unreliable assisted reproductive technologies in pursuit of the children they rejected years before.

God is Love: love gives itself to the beloved, and is made to be fruitful; therefore, the human person can only be happy - in this life and in the next - when he learns to love and be open to fruitfulness, according to his dignity as a human person made in God's image. Our Lord Jesus established the Catholic Church not to place limits and restrictions upon us, but to teach us how to live on earth in accordance with our dignity as persons created in the image of God and to thus one day live forever with Him in Heaven.

What is the Remedy to This Catastrophe?

As priests, you will have the power to promote God's plan for a Culture of Life and Love, wherever you are, in any part of the world. If you preach against contraception, people of good will listen because they naturally thirst for the truth. If they embrace this truth, they can recognize that procreation is good, and will repudiate the "contraceptive mentality" which rejects God's plan, and they will have the opportunity to learn to love authentically. Marriage and family life can begin to flourish; as children are increasingly welcomed and love, stable societies can be restored.

But they must hear this from you, the priests. By not preaching against contraception, you will be giving an unspoken approval of it; you would be, in a very real manner, contracepting the truth by acting as a barrier between God's truth and His people. As Pope St. Felix III so famously proclaimed, "Not to oppose error is to approve it; not to defend the truth is to suppress it."

By preaching the fullness of the Gospel of Life and refuting all aspects of the contraceptive mentality, not only will your people be much happier and more fully human, but you will be happier as well. You will spend much less time in marriage counseling and mediating family conflicts, and much more time in performing baptisms and marriages that can last a lifetime. Your parish, and the souls of your people, will be serene.

Our fundamental mission is to establish the Culture of Life by "making disciples of all nations." We cannot do this by simply eliminating something that is evil; we must bring it about by embracing what is fundamentally good - in this case, authentic human love, fidelity in marriage, and openness to fruitfulness within the context of committed married love.

Evangelization is no longer just a great good. It is a necessity if we are to survive.