BroadSnark

There are a lot of things that piss me off about the catholic church, but the worst has to be the church’s attitude toward contraception.

One of the main reasons the church gives for their position on contraception is natural law. As they explain it on the Catholic Answers website, “contraception is wrong because it’s a deliberate violation of the design God built into the human race, often referred to as ‘natural law.’ The natural law purpose of sex is procreation.”

So, by that logic, you might think the church would be against anything unnatural. Yet they aren’t.

Aren’t houses unnatural protection against the elements, an elemental prophylactic of sorts? Yet the pope lives in a house, a rather large one.

Aren’t cars unnatural? Yet, the pope has his own specially designed one.

Isn’t medical care unnatural? Yet the pope sees a doctor. When John Paul was shot they didn’t just let nature take its course.

Tsunamis are natural. Plagues are natural. Dying from poisonous snake bites or peanut allergies is natural. Should we do nothing to protect ourselves? Should we let nature rule no matter what the consequences?

The catholic church apparently thinks so when it comes to sex. If children are brought into this world to starve to death, so be it. If people do not use condoms and die from AIDS, so be it.

Thankfully, despite the catholic church’s (and other anti-abortion religious group’s) position on contraception, most practitioners take a more logical approach. Lets hope they can have some influence.

President Obama has been getting his share of criticism lately. And it isn’t just coming from Fox News or the crazies who are still searching for his Kenyan birth certificate. Much of the criticism has been coming from his supporters.

The gay community and its allies are furious about the recent brief defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Particularly infuriating was the inference that gay marriage equates with incest.

Those of us who think that torture should be fully investigated are upset about Obama’s unwillingness to pursue the matter. The u-turn he took regarding the release of torture photographs was frustrating to say the least.

Some of the reaction has been nasty. I’ve seen “f-you Obama” posts. I’ve read a litany of articles on how the gay community needs to dump Obama and the democrats. One writer even went so far as to wax nostalgic for the Bush administration – at least we knew they were going to screw us.

Then there are Obama’s unwavering defenders. When Bill Maher criticized Obama for not pushing hard enough for health care and cutting carbon emissions, he received a barrage of calls from Obama supporters.

In response, Bill Maher said “He’s your president, not your boyfriend.”

Which reminded me of the part in Sexaholix, where John Leguizamo talks about falling in love with his girlfriend. He fell in love with her because she “calls me on my bullshit, but is sweet about it.”

Real support means calling people on their bullshit, not blindly supporting every stupid thing they do.

More importantly, we don’t need to chose friend or foe. It doesn’t make you a foe if you criticize the president. It doesn’t make you a friend if you don’t. In fact, Obama needs us to be vocal and pushy. The people who don’t want to see his promises fulfilled certainly will be.

We have a tendency to be unhappy with one action and extrapolate that to mean that the person is bad or failing or selling out. Life is not that simple. As Glenn Greenwald pointed out:

In general, how much one criticizes Obama is largely a function of the areas on which one tends to focus. If I had spent the week writing about Iran, I would be largely defending — and praising — Obama’s very wise restraint, even in the face of bipartisan political pressure, when it comes to interfering in Iran’s internal political disputes. His private and public refusal to cheer on all of Israel’s policies is also commendable. Conversely, those who focus on gay issues have been understandably furious with the administration, and in the areas of civil liberties, secrecy, and his Justice Department generally, the administration has been nothing short of abysmal.

Finally, I’d like to respond to those people who are unhappy with some of Obama’s actions, but feel we haven’t given him a chance and so should keep quiet. Or maybe they think he needs to spend his political capital on health care and so can’t waste it on prosecuting torturers or following through on promises to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Or maybe they are just afraid he won’t get reelected if he pisses off too many homophobes and torture supporters.

I might accept that criticism was coming too soon if it was simply a matter of not proactively following through on certain promises he made. But this is much more than that. He is actually defending the very policies he claims to be against, from the Defense of Marriage Act to indefinite detention of “suspected” terrorists.

It is not just our right, but our responsibility to point out the hypocrisy and failures of the Obama administration. That doesn’t mean we are being too hard on him. It means we believe he can (and should) be who he said he was.

Today, in his Christmas address, the pope asked for people to work together to solve our problems “in a spirit of authentic solidarity.”

I thought about using this post to rant about someone who would call for authentic solidarity out of one side of his mouth while vilifying large swaths of humanity by talking about the evil dangers of homosexuality out of the other.

I thought about marveling at the shear audacity of someone who can add the accumulation of wealth to the deadly sins that will take you straight to hell, all the while sitting in the midst of thousands of years of accumulated riches.

I thought about a little diatribe on how many human beings have died of aids because they won’t use a condom, as the pope thinks birth control is a sin. Or perhaps on how many women have died because of back alley abortions or because a doctor in Nicaragua suspected a miscarriage might have been an abortion and didn’t want to risk prison.

I thought about recounting the history of Catholicism in the world. I thought about the crusades, the inquisition, forcible conversions, decimation of indigenous culture, appeasement of nazis, priests abusing children and concealment of their crimes…

But then I thought, who gives a damn what the pope thinks? The pope looks like what he is, a decrepit relic.

Catholicism is on the decline all over. In the United States, Catholic numbers have held somewhat steady due to an influx of immigrants from places like Mexico, but native-born Americans are dropping the religion. And with anti-immigrant hysteria and a declining economy keeping immigrants away, that number is bound to decline further.

Spain, once a bastion of Catholicism, is going the way of the rest of Europe and leaving the church behind. Latin America has been hemorrhaging Catholics. The number of nuns and monks in the world is on decline. The number of Catholic priests is on decline. And Catholic school enrollment is down. The drop-off in the United States has been precipitous, causing all sorts of ogeda in the conservative community. In fact, according to the Vatican themselves, Islam has now overtaken Catholicism as the worlds most practiced religion.

So who really cares what the pope thinks. Not even practicing Catholics pay much attention his dictates anymore.