331 thoughts on “Hating Birth Control”

    1. Hey, I just clicked here.
      That preacher’s crazy
      It’s my reply post
      So first me maybe

      1. Nice lyrics.

        You were early today
        But bald Jone Grad made hay
        And he’s first for the day
        So he gets butt cushion, maybe.

  3. Annette Funicello as a whore…:shock: 😳 this bozo had better watch out for millions of outraged Mouse Club fans.

    1. Somewhat off topic, I took a picture of my daughter (3 years old) with a Minnie Mouse temporary tatoo and a fundie commented and referred to her as a “thug”.

      You might be a fundie if you equate a 3 year old with Minnie Mouse temporary tatoo as a thug.

        1. No I did the same thing years ago with my boy while we were still fundie, I got called out during a Wednesday night “Bible study”.

      2. They’re so common up here in Portland (highest number of tattoo parlors per capita in the nation) that I doubt you’d hear that here. Certainly not if there were any visitors, or people who’d come to church after their younger years.

        My younger daughter complains that she can’t ever get a tattoo and it’s all my fault. Because I named her Lydia. 😉

        1. Somewhere Groucho is shaking his finger at you blowing the opportunity 😀

      3. My 10-year-old daughter told me last week that she wants to get a tattoo when she’s old enough. She was an awareness ribbon for a disease that has profoundly affected her life via someone close to her (deliberately vague here). She made a good case for it, and I’ll probably take her to get it when she’s old enough. Heck, I might get one too.

      4. I wasn’t allowed to wear the temporary ones either. Of course, I don’t have any now, because 1. I don’t want one, and 2. If I did, my mother would be heartbroken – and a tattoo just isn’t worth doing that to me.

        1. I got a tattoo as a gift from my wife. It’s an icthus with the United Methodist Cross and Flame. When my mom saw it, wanted to know if I was having a midlife crisis. I just laughed.

        4. The safest investment around is in companies that sell tattoo removal equipment.
          If I had had money to invest 10 years ago, I’d be rich by now.

        5. My brother was not allowed to dye his hair while he lived with my parents. He was thrilled to get a part in a high school play that required him to dye his hair black!

      5. Calling a three-year-old a thug is the kind of extremism and unreasonableness that drives people away from fundamentalism. It’s a joke.

        1. I was unclear: fundamentalists are turning their beliefs into a joke when they make intemperate, exaggerated statements like this.

    2. I’m sure that plenty of preachers called her such names for her lack of modesty in the “Beach Party” movies she made.

    3. The Funicello comment is disturbing. He’s referring to a poster from ’64 that was altered (parodied) 40 years later to include the comment about an anti-contraceptive pill that was not manufactured until after 2000.

  4. I haven’t watched the video yet – difficult to do while at work – but I wonder how Stevey feels about agreeing with the RCC on this one.

    2. This is only a clip from a whole sermon. Steve believes natural family planning the “rythem method” practiced by the Catholics is too liberal and his fundie congregation should be making as many babies as possible. For more info google – “quiverful movement”

      2. as a catholic that has recently NFP classes, I just want to point out that the rythem method isn’t really taught anymore. I doesn’t account for women with irregular and difficult to predict cycles. The newer ways are much more accurate and much safer than BC

    3. Yeah — these are the times I regret the open cubicle layout here in the office =(

    4. Funny you should mention that.

      The IFB church I grew up in had no problem with birth control; my fiancee’s church actually has a line in their constitution condemning it (talk about meddling!). I had no idea what a hot-button issue it was, but it was the catalyst for her mom “cancelling” our engagement and going full-throttle into trying to control and manipulate her, all with her “pastor’s” cowardly support.

      I talked to her pastor about it and tried to understand why they were so intent about it. I thought that the earliest a fertilized egg could be considered a human was at implantation, because that’s when it started receiving nourishment from the mother’s blood, and the Bible states that the life of the flesh is in the blood. Her “pastor” accused me of a private interpretation (unlike his courtship and umbrella of authority teachings, of course) and told me that I was out of line with 2000 years of teaching from the Catholics and Orthodox.

      My mind was blown at how their teaching authority SUDDENLY came into play at an independent, fundamental, KJV church.

      1. I like your definition; it’s what I have long thought, but I have never expressed myself as well as you did.

    1. LOL — I made it 0:36 in before I had to give up because of too much accumulated NOPE!

      1) Plasma should not be orange. Healthy plasma should be light yellowy, even a pale orangey-yellow, but not straight-up orange. That means that the red blood cells are rupturing and that is Not A Good Thing.

      2) Birth control does not turn plasma green. Birth control has no effect on plasma color. I don’t know of anything that would turn plasma green, but I warrant anything that could do that would also be Not A Good Thing.

      But hey, who am I to argue with the great preacher? Clearly my past year of phlebotomy classes was sadly lacking in certain areas, since I’ve never even heard of green plasma.

  6. I can’t believe all these negative statements about women. I mean, obviously guys don’t have to worry about being pregnant, but still they shouldn’t be “man-whoring” like he doesn’t talk about.

    I’m sure it will be mentioned later, in better detail, but birth control is deceptively named. It has many uses outside of being just a baby killer so a woman can be as sexual as she wishes. It helps relieve pain for some women. What an idiot.

    Favorite quote: “We live in a society of idle women.”

    1. Nevermind: “I brought home the forms so I could opt out of the public school ‘You Know What’ education classes.” The man cannot even bring himself to say sex.

      1. But he has no problem with saying, “whore whore whore whore whore whore whore.”

        Something IS wrong with this picture, right?

        2. Anyone asked him about his attitudes on men using condoms? I couldn’t watch more than a minute of this clip so I never found out if he only thinks women are immoral.

        3. I was thinking the same thing!!!

          This poor fool can’t bring himself to say the word ‘sex’ but has no problem with any variation of the word ‘whore’.

          Very telling, isn’t it?

        4. I imagine his reasoning, convoluted though it is, would be that whore is a biblical word, like his [mis]use of “pisseth”. I’m surprised he doesn’t call it “knoweth” education.

        6. RIGHT!!! To quote one of my favorite Bible teachers, there’s no consistency in legalism.

      2. Trust a Fundy to claim expertise on what is taught and how it’s taught in a class that he “opted out of.”

        1. Its a bit like a celibate Catholic priest giving marriage advice to his parishioners
          Uh..wait a minute…

    2. Which is why the current CEO of Yahoo is a woman…. Because of idleness. What an idiot

      1. I just tried to think of idle women I know, and realized I don’t know any.
        Your milage may vary, of course.

        1. I’m with you there BG – I don’t know any idle women. With or without children

        2. U.S. fundamentalist Christian stay-at-home daughters of non-Quiverfull middle-class families.

    3. Wait . . . are women idle or are they busy popping BC pills and whoring around while pimping out their daughters?? I don’t think he’s thought this through . . .

      ::rolls eyes so hard, sprains facial muscle::

    4. If they were truly “idle women”, why would they need birth control?

      2. She was sitting around idle. Nine months ago, he saw her reading a magazine on the couch and said “no, no no no, I need to give you something to do.”

        1. Him:
          “Come’ere let give you some “you know what” education you whore”

          Her:
          “I love it when you talk MoG to me”

        2. BigHoss -That MoG talk is better than the usual that we have come to know. Such as:

          “Don’t tell your parents.”
          “It is legal across state lines.”

    3. I’m presuming that Zsuzsanna wasn’t forced into this marriage, but entered of her own volition. Poor, demented woman.
      But this joker has daughters! How will they ever grow to live a normal life with this level of misogyny poured down on their unsuspecting heads.
      Shame on him.

      1. If Zsuzsanna grew up in a similar family, was sheltered all her life, and was brainwashed into expecting this life (and that she can never leave after saying “I do”, no matter how bad it gets), then how responsible is she for the situation she is currently in?

        I don’t know what her situation is, but it seems strange to feel compassion for the daughters for something while dismissing the mother who may have been in the exact same situation.

        1. I find Zsuzsanna Anderson weirdly fascinating, largely because she WASN’T brought up fundie. She is originally from Germany and was raised Catholic. If I remember rightly, she moved to the US when she was 19 or 20, met her husband and converted to the One True Faith.

          The bizarre ideology she has embraced is definitely causing her to suffer, tho. The woman has had eight children despite getting hyperemesis so badly every time that it gives her PTSD.

          (All the above information is sourced from her blog, “Are they all yours”, which is a goldmine of fundie goodness for those who like that kind of thing.)

        2. Bella, she may not have been a fundamental Baptist, but fundamental Catholics will give Indy-Fundies a run for their money. Being from Italy, it’s fairly likely she was already on the “have all the kids ever” bandwagon before converting to Fundy Bapstistism. It’s all very :-/ followed by a big :-(.

        3. I quit reading her blog after it crashed my computer half a dozen times.
          But it made pretty compelling reading, in the same way that “Eraserhead” makes compelling viewing.

      2. I have a daughter and not only do I not want her exposed to this bullish*t, I really have to wonder. I mean, this fascination with gender and which man is in charge etc. all has an oddly sexual undertone that is very uncomfortable. Especially when it comes to daughters. Is it just me, or do others see that as well?

        1. I see it. It’s not something the average pew fundy really wants to think about though.

  8. Green plasma…..is that for real? I’ve been idle for 16 years – happy birthday to my youngest!! Before and after my two I was married and on the pill, so that makes me a ………

    1. Normal person??? And yeah, from what I found it can happen. It happens with a large amount of copper in the blood. Though it looks disturbing, it really means nothing. It is still safe to donate, and the blood itself is still red, just not the plasma.

      1. Interesting! Of course in this context green plasma is of the devil 🙂 Thank you for calling me normal – I’m rarely called that!

      2. So … at least one kind of birth control can turn you into a Vulcan?
        Cool beans!
        Live long and prosper!

        1. A previous mind meld is the logical explanaition for the similitude of our thoughts.

        2. The sharing of thoughts is a vulgar act and only practiced by a shunned minority of Vulcans – please stop promoting your dangerous and obscene ideas on this site

        3. Sorry captain_solo — my father prohibited me from attending thought sharing education classes and I did not know the dangers

        5. Ah. One of the two IUDs available in the US slowly releases copper ions. Maybe that’s what plasma lady had.

        6. IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!!!!

          Copper = green plasma = copper = Coppertone = Annette = The Pill = immodest dress = idleness = immorality.

          Therefore, tans are evil and we must stay out of the sun to avoid “you-know-what” sins.

  10. Wait…I grew up in a conservative Baptist church, and I thought birth control was OK? I thought it was only a sin for Catholics? Is this something new?

    1. Same here. Although there is a family or two who I have to wonder if they know what birth control is or use it. The last two out of four or five kids and counting have been happy accidents for the one family. Then again they’re going to the missions field soon and we all know missionaries must have a million children before they can even get on that plane. 😉

        1. I’m guessing some of them would resent “pope” as well, even if that’s more or less the sort of position they want to be viewed as having

        3. True, but I don’t doubt they are envious of the more publicly accepted revered power the popes have.

          Hebrews 13:17 was the theme verse of the protestant pope I mentioned below. Any time I would question him and we disagreed…he would get red in the face and his jaw would tense as he quoted this as the final word on who must be right:

          “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.”

          To the exclusion of many other verses, of course!

        4. At Semp — They (fundies) don’t know about the many positions — they opted out of the class

      2. Except a pope is supposed to be celibate, isn’t he?
        Unless they’re modeling themselves after Alexander VI.

        1. Exactly. They are not bound to any truth since they have direct and final connection to God. Celibacy one day, promiscuity the next 🙂 One protestant pope of my acquaintance preached long and hard for a week of meetings on the home and family. When I began counseling a couple that was trying to reconcile (as the “pope” had encouraged for the entire week), his personal disdain for the sins of the wife led him to tell me to stop counseling them–that the husband would be better off without her. Edict number ????

      3. The biggest irony here is that IFB “rulers” are pretty much self-appointed. If no existing church asks one to be pope, he can always “plant” his own church or churches, and there’s nobody to overrule him.

    3. Although the Catholic position on BC is well known and even has jokes about it, conservative and/or Independent Fundamental Baptists have a wide variety of thoughts on the matter. Some are as strict as Catholics; others say that it is up to each couple.

      I know (from being in one) that Bill Gothard taught that “the pill” was wrong because it caused abortions, causing anxiety among some our church group that we had been murdering babies by using the pill.

    2. He would just move on to wife #2 in short order….just like those good ole days when women often died from childbirth.

      Remember this is the same idiot who says women should not be seen by male OBGYNs.

      Anyway you look at it, women lose in this pardigm. They stay home and are called idle. They work they are not considered “keepers at home”. They risk their lives and sanity spitting out a kid every year or get called a whore for daring to go on birth control.

      This is a horrible way to treat women. His kids are in for a really bad time. I hope they break free.

      1. And the female OBGyn’s went to med school and work long hours, so they must be whores since they’re not homemakers. Does he want his wife going to one of those? Women can’t win in fundyland.

    1. At least your argument is logically consistent, unlike a certain Fundy preacher’s.

  13. “Not only does birth control do damage to women, it hurts their body if they’re using the pills. And it also affects their character, causing them to be an idle, tattler, gossip, turning aside after Satan…”

    Wow! What incredible power in that little pill. Of course, I thought I remember Jesus saying, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.” (Mt. 15:19-21)

    3. Now of course if it *only* hurt the body, it would be perfectly fiiine….

    4. “It’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person” – not a principle that is recognized by most fundies – they are more of the “do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.” crowd mentioned in Colossians. You know, all that stuff that doesn’t do anything to restrain the flesh but is only about appearances…

  14. Abusive men often start the abuse when their wife gets pregnant for the first time. This is because the woman is now seen as trapped and he thinks he has her locked in for life, so he can treat her badly. This has been recognised by professionals, and as a result women in Queensland hospitals are interviewed about issues of safety when they go to maternity appointments. Many abused women are kept in perpetual pregnancy. They are too tired and housebound to be able to think clearly and protect themselves – and they either cannot afford to take care of multiple children if they leave, or they don’t think they can handle being a single mother of a large family.

    Quiverfull’s dirty little secret?

    1. Mr. Quiverfull keeps his wife pregnant to control her. They have so many kids they have to hire a 15 year old female babysitter, whom Mr. Quiverfull doinks. It’s all about male power, control, and insemination.

      1. After doinking said 15 year old baby sitter, they send her to another state to join a wonderful ministry.

    2. Oh, I agree abusive men use such beliefs to maintain control over their wives and keep them at home.

      When you step back and think about it…Nothing intimidates a control fiend Fundy leader more than the thought of truly educated and free women who can function very well without them. What will their wives and daughters think of such an example of freedom of thought and independence? It must be snuffed out, of course.

      Kind of reminds me of that horrible case of terrorists kidnapping those schoolgirls in Nigeria because they are against women being educated and think they should all get married right away. A hideous crime…and another example of how powerful those Fundies perceive educated and free women to be. They fear it will be the undoing of the fabric of their society . And they will fight against it.

      1. My hubby wasn’t feeling 100% the other day, so I was getting his dinner for him so he didn’t have to get up. I was also barefoot. And pregnant. In the kitchen. D: I accidentally turned into a fundy!

        1. Dern right! Don’t you get idle on me!!

          I mean, “thank you for taking care of me when I felt like crap ma’am” XOXOXO

  15. I always hated it when IFB preachers would get on some medical rant they know nothing about. It especially frustrated me being an EMT on a FD having a more exposure to medical care than the average person.

    When confronting the MoG on his mis-information, I got the “do you trust God or do you trust man (doctors)” sermon.

      1. No but apparently he believed he had special MoG powers that only a MoG could have. As in we could individually communicate with God, but there were special things that he would only communicate to the MoG. …. riggggghht..

    2. Yah, well, about medicine, I think I trust the broad consensus of professional physicians and medical researchers.

  16. What a maroon (moron)!

    This is what passes for the MOG. No brains, woman-hating, … and I wonder what happens in his office after hours.

    The expression, “methinks he doth protest too much” is fairly accurate. How many of these characters are found to be having affairs?

    My wife and I stopped with 4 children. That has been enough. Birth control has been a blessing. People like this preacher have likely produced more committed atheists than they have Christians, for reasons utterly apparent.

    1. I had three, and truth be told, we couldn’t afford them. (The youngest was a surprise.) But after the youngest was born, I was on the Pill for many years because I had endometriosis, which causes a great deal of pain and a buildup of scar tissue, among other things. I NEEDED those drugs, and morals had nothing to do with it. At that time is was a good fundy mommy, with little kids, little education, and little mind of my own.

      I got better.

    2. “People like this preacher have likely produced more committed atheists than they have Christians, for reasons utterly apparent.”

      So very true. I’m not an atheist but not a believer, either. A lot of it has to do with the leaders’ attitudes and actions towards us. Of course, it’s all my fault or all in my head. Can’t win in their eyes. I don’t play with them anymore so it doesn’t matter what they think.

      1. “But sir, you can’t not believe in something just because people mistreat it and abuse it”. That was the line thrown at me when I complained about faith and the rotten fruits it brought forth. Never mind the claim that the holy spirit will fix and guide you, and much more the pastors. I went from fundie, to believing that maybe the holy spirit works differently in everyone (even though some of the things it “led” people to do were at complete opposite in positions) as if it was more subjective, then to just giving up ever trying to find the truth and leaving it at that. If the holy spirit “convicts” people into saying crap like this guy, then it should also “convict” people into stopping the sexual abuse and crap that always gets attributed to our human nature.

      2. Aye! It was words like these that led me and my love out of that world. We might not have eer left if not for the fallacies and ignorance displayed by our fundy leaders. Right now I don’t believe in any religion, but can back up that stance better than I ever could in fundyland. “If you don’t know something just make itup and try to sound professional.” -Basically every fundy preacher ever

  17. Oh, barf. I’m honestly surprised his wife hasn’t taken her frying pan to his thick head yet. You really have to wonder why fundy men are so all-fired to keep the wimmens in the kitchen; there are a LOT of potential weapons in there.

    1. Commenting from a former police dispatcher’s perspective: As a rule, we ask if there are weapons in the home for every domestic call. The men would usually answer yes or no. The women 9 times out of 10 in the absence of firearms would mention kitchen knives. Nothing genderist here, just plain facts: it’s crossed their mind.

    2. I know someone who runs a domestic violence intervention program in Dallas. They always teach people to avoid having arguments in the kitchen, because of the high incidence of knives, cast-iron skillets, very hot things, and other ready-to-hand weapons.

      1. My husband would never ever ever pick a fight with me in the kitchen. Not because he’s afraid of injury, but because he’d worry that it would interfere with his dinner being on time.

        And it would. 😀

        1. I’d be more concerned abot what went into my dinner.

          “Gee honey. This meatloaf tastes different tonight.”

        4. Issues of gender and potential weapons aside, you never ever want to piss off the cook.

        5. I was lead investigator years ago on a homicide where a man (arguing with his wife) dared her to kill him. He went to bed. She went to the kitchen, retrieved an 8″ butcher knife and plunged it into his heart as he slept. Interesting blood spatter it was.

  18. Coming from his mouth non of this is surprising – sadly I know a lot of Fundys who believe this way.

  19. His little “about the 60s” half-joke before he describes the picture tells us two things:

    1. He still thinks Annette is relevant, since he hasn’t seen anything made after 1960s. Or, let me say, he doesn’t allow anyone in his home to see anything made after the 1960s. Who knows what he’s watching at “the office.”

    2. He secretly has the hots for Annette–she’s the sexiest thing he ever sees on the screen (possible office-viewing aside). But he doesn’t want anyone to know that.

    This fundy habit of dragging up things 50 years behind the times to crucify for 20 minutes in their speeches is a symptom of the laziness endemic to their preaching style. (Not to mention revealing that they don’t know enough about Scripture to talk about it for more than 5 minutes out of 40).

    But even beyond that, let’s just have a collective stroke for a sec and imagine that everything he’s saying is totally accurate: how could he ever reach a 2013 person with a 1965 cultural reference? Saying you’re really trying to reach people with the Gospel doesn’t change, but culture does. A new generation of pagans comes up every time, and each new group needs to be addressed like I actually have met one of them in real life and know something about their life, what they struggle with, what concerns them, what threats to their happiness exist in this world, even what sins they love to most and excuse hardest. You know, be something like the Savior who put aside His glory and comfort to take on a demeaning created body and enter a horrific world of sin, death, suffering and rebels who could kill Him rather than listen to Him–so He could be a high priest who knows what it is to be human.

    I don’t have to totally immerse myself in their sin to sympathize with them, but I do have to know what their lives are like. Sorry, but Annette can’t help me with that.

      1. I doubt that. Most of his congregation is his wife and their many children.

  20. •Say your really trying to reach people with the Gospel–the Gospel doesn’t change…

    Not “saying your really trying to reach people with the Gospel doesn’t change.

    George.

  22. Having lived in many states due to my husband serving in the military, I have been in many different IFB churches. One certainly was a have many babies type, but it wasn’t dogmatic as this fool! Then there are others that are most definitely FOR birth control. It is odd the difference. But a lot of them are different in some odd ways.
    Having had four children, I can tell you it would N O T be wise to keep having children. Part of the reason is physical, but more than that is mental. And having been around families that feel the need to keep popping them out, I can tell you the mental state of some mothers is not good. The one thing that I learned was that if the father was not able to be there and plugged in 24/7 it is NOT a good turnout for the mom. The preacher at one church was an amazing in tune father. I can’t imagine that ole Steve here gives a rat’s behind about being there to help his wife. He is a chauvinistic pig. He is repulsive on every level. I despise the crap he was saying about the woman constantly being pregnant. Let me tell you, pregnancy is NOT easy at times!!!!! And God help you when you have 4 under five like most do. I did not thankfully. Well, I think I had three under five and a husband out to sea most of the time, so yes, it is hard! I survived fine, but the ones whose husbands are home every night and have to deal with creeps like this, God help them.

    2. He sounds like a real winner, but then again, he had the sense to marry you.

  23. This clown is positively begging for a kick in the nuts. That, or a DIY vasectomy.

    2. The Border Patrol apparently applied the Taser to the wrong part of his body.

      I’m against forced sterilization on principle, but in Anderson’s case I’d make an exception.

  24. Good grief,,, “attend ‘you know what’ classes”. It’s S E X!!!! you goof. Ask any of the kids that are unfortunately sitting in your pews listening to your legalism. And I would have to see that ad with Annette in it to believe it as anderson is one that stretches the truth a lot to try to prove his points. Same mold as billy gothard is made from.

      2. Well, there enough “whoredom” in the original ad for most fundamentalists.

  25. Of course, we knew that Anderson would work in a plug for Hobby Lobby and its frivolous lawsuit.
    He’s right– Hobby Lobby does not want to buy contraceptives for its employees. Instead, it wants to SELL contraceptives to its employees.
    The company has extensive investments in pharmaceutical companies that manufacture and sell birth control drugs and devices, including “morning after” birth control pills and abortion drugs.

    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/hobby-lobby-retirement-plan-invested-emergency-contraception-and-abortion-drug-makers

    1. I’m probably the only one here who wishes I had had more children but then I’m Catholic. What do I know. 😉

      For the record Natural Family Planning is different from the rhythm method. This was something that I was not personally concerned with ( chemo induced menopause before conversion) but I have friends who did and apparently if you follow it correctly it works. They might have six children to my three but they don’t have kids coming out of the woodwork. As I look around church on Sunday I see that the families are a bit larger than normal but I think in the ten years I’ve been a Catholic I’ve only seen maybe two or three ‘Dugger’ like families here. That’s just my personal experience.

      1. I don’t think anyone is saying having many kids is bad. But it should be the choice of the parents rather than the demand of a fundy pastor who believes if your wife is not pregnant or mother to many children she is sinful.

        The issue with Hobby Lobby is more than just “birth control.” And here is where I am disappointed with the Catholic Church as well. Somewhere around 58% of women are on birth control for reasons other than to not get pregnant. They have health issues which require the drug to regulate their system. I have friends who without the pill, they would not be able to function for a week every month–you cannot hold down a job when you cannot work one week a month. 58% of those on the pill are doing so for health reasons–so they can work and function normally in society. For them it is as necessary as insulin is for a diabetic, yet Christian organizations are saying they do not want to pay for birth control or support a woman’s lifestyle choices. But it is more than lifestyle choices.

        1. The Catholic Church allows birth control if it is for medical purposes. I used it myself for that purpose but then again in the interest of full disclosure I also was diagnosed with breast cancer. I do not know if the two events are related.

          My insurance paid for the birth control as long as it was authorized by the Doctor. I did not work for any Catholic Organization but they were ok with it…at least the Priest I talked to was ok with it.

        2. About 98% of American women use contraceptives of some kind at some time in their lives.
          Obviously, that includes most Catholic women.

        4. Yes, many Catholic women use artificial birth control. That does not make it right. It is largely the result of faulty catechesis over the past 40 years.

          Not saying this to judge; I was one of those many women. But seriously–truth is not determined by numbers.

          As elfdream points out, the Catholic Church permits use of contraceptives for medical reasons…just not for contraceptive purposes.

          There’s a whole lot of misunderstanding and misinformation out there about What Catholics Believe. 🙂

        5. That may be the official stance. And really, it is pretty well known. However, with rates like that, it is apparent that many Catholic women have chosen to disregard it.

        6. Well, you can call it the result of “faulty catechesis,” or you can call it a triumph of common sense over dogma.

          You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to …

      2. I actually took the NFP course when I first started worrying about birth control. I was welcomed even though I wasn’t catholic. You’re right, it’s actually very scientific, it takes into account that a woman’s cycle can change every month, and you have to learn and pay attention to your body to learn when ovulation is going to occur, not just follow the rhythm method (which assumes that you will ovulate at the same time as last month or whatever). If followed correctly, it has a high success rate.

        That said, there is a very different feeling between people having a large family because it was their choice and people having a large family because it is seen as the spiritual thing to do.

        1. That said, there is a very different feeling between people having a large family because it was their choice and people having a large family because it is seen as the spiritual thing to do.

          Agreed. There is nothing wrong with prudentially spacing children.

      3. I’m fairly sure that both NFP and the rhythm method are entirely dependent on the regularity of the woman. For someone like me, with PCOS, there’s no way it would be in any way a feasible option. It would also be exceptionally difficult to keep up with. For other women who have a clockwork-like schedule, I’m sure it can be fairly successful. I’m also sure they have a higher fail rate that contraceptives even with “success,” though because pregnancy can occur at any time.

        1. IIRC the NFP teachers have workarounds for irregular cycles. It’s been a few years, though, so I don’t remember them. (I was always pretty regular until I hit peri-menopause.)

        2. No, NFP works on finding out when you ovulate each month. It works by learning the biology of your body, from learning to judge from the changes to your discharge and from the changes to your uterus iirc. You can do it if you are irregular. You can do it to prevent pregnancy or to try and aid conception. And you can do it to check for some medical conditions that might inhibit conception, because you can tell when in your cycle you ovulate etc.

          The rhythm method doesn’t work.

        3. NFP isn’t so much attached to a schedule. Instead, you check cervical mucus. As ovulation nears, it will turn from ordinary ‘goop’ to a slick mucus that you can pull into a strand or thread- it’s known as spinnbarkeit. (It’s pretty much the optimum medium for the little swimmers.) Usually there is some monitoring of basal temperature too.

          It is time consuming and requires skill. And requires either backup BC during the fertile periods, or abstinence. So you’re back where you started.

  26. Was this jerk-off born and raised in Saudi Arabia? or would he say that country is too librul regardind wimmin?

  27. Darrell, I don’t mean to be rude or to breach the Anderson’s privacy, but Valerie Tarico has an article on how Ms Anderson has publicised details on her blog showing how she chose to have an operation on her two twins that had twin-to-twin transfer syndrome. She lost one of her twins after undergoing a laser ablation operation.

    This situation is very strange – they choose to use reproductive healthcare when it changes the probability of death for one of the twins, yet claim that they are completely opposed to abortion and contraception.

    http://awaypoint.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/contraception-equals-whoredom-pastor-cut-off-one-twin-to-save-the-other/

    1. Meh. Most fundy churches have royalty, who can break the rules, and peasants, who can’t.

      Most fundy churches teach that divorce exempts you permanently from ministry. Almost any singly mother or divorced woman that I’ve spoken to was treated like a second class citizen. Yet Mark Chappell can get a divorce after confessing to “affairs” with minors, and move into a head pastor role in a new church. Dave Hyles is divorced, allegedly molested teens, cohabited with another woman, and was the sole suspect in the death of his partner’s little boy. He’s now back on the IFB preaching circuit.

      Of course it’s ok for the Anderson’s to have such a medical procedure. That doesn’t mean you’d be allowed to.

    2. aronzak – Never ever let the facts get in the way of a good sermon illustration. 🙂

  28. This guy is like a car wreck. You know you shouldn’t pay attention to it, but you catch yourself staring anyway.

  29. “Teenage pregnancy was a shame – it was looked down upon.” Yeah – women were treated like Tina Anderson.

    I was the product of teenage pregnancy. I’d prefer the way my biological mother was treated – not kicked out of her home. Not sent away, but loved. They acknowledged her mistakes, yes, but her parents loved her anyway.

      1. Doesn’t see it as a problem? You mean he thinks it was a great virtue to treat pregant unmarried women as pariahs.

    2. I’m honestly not sure that history really backs up this version of how teen pregnancy was managed. Granted, this is all anecdotal, but …

      My maternal grandmother was a teenage mother at 14. She continued living at home until she was old enough to move out with her eventual husband. My mom was also a teen mom, pregnant at 16 and married at 17 before the baby arrived. No one cast either of these women out or treated them as social pariahs.

      Oh, heck, going even further back in history was my paternal great aunt. She got pregnant in the 1890s. She was not turned out of her (upper middle class) home, and while her parents raised her baby as theirs, she played a major supporting role in his life. My grandfather’s life.

      Teen pregnancy has always happened. Unwed motherhood is common throughout history. Turning these women and their children out of their homes, shunning them, treating them as less-than has absolutely no purpose whatsoever other than to shame the woman. It certainly doesn’t stop the behavior and may even contribute to worse choices as the mother is then forced to find ways (possibly criminal, possibly dangerous) to support herself and her child in a world that has completely rejected them.

  30. I can’t seem to reply to my own post but I want to make clear that I was DX with the cancer AFTER I used the birth control. Once again the two things may not be related.

  31. So much stuff to talk about, but my primary thing is this: How sexist can this guy be? One girl with four guys around her, and SHE’S a whore. What about the four guys? Nothing about them? I mean, if you’re going to be a judgmental douche, at least have the courtesy to judge everybody.

  32. Along with everything that has been said my $.02 is why does a pastor feel like he needs to insert himself into everyones bedroom?

    1. The mental image of that guy’s bearded mug smiling in smug approval at me from the corner of the room is really going to mess up my game.

  33. So birth control, specifically the pill, is what turns women into whores? That is sort of like saying, “Guns kill people.” While the pill may make it easier for men and women alike to engage in extra-marital sex because it does significantly reduce one major consequence, it isn’t to blame. Where does the simple fact of fallen human nature enter into the picture. Always easier to blame someone else than take responsibility…”God it was the woman You gave me…”

    And funny how he rants against women having too much time and how that leads to immoral behavior. If I remember correctly, David was lounging on his rooftop and had the time to ogle a woman bathing. Can idleness lead to sin? It certainly can, but it isn’t gender specific.

    Surprisingly, he’s not really that far off with Hobby Lobby. It is anything but a frivolous lawsuit, and thankfully they are not alone in their objection to this provision in the Affordable Care Act. This is a serious First Amendment issue that is at stake and whether or not the government has the right to force people to compromise sincerely and historically established religious beliefs. I was not aware of Hobby Lobby’s investment in birth control companies and I would acknowledge a degree of hypocrisy on their part on this matter, but one of the core values that this country was founded on is religious liberty, the right for individual to practice their faith without government involvement or coercion. I understand that Hobby Lobby is a corporation, but it a corporation run by people with a well-established set of values as are some of the Catholic agencies fighting this provision. And while it pains me to say this, Steve is absolutely right when he says that Hobby Lobby is not forbidding any of their employees from buying or using birth control; they simply don’t want to provide it.

    Lastly, there are some potential side-effects of the pill that few people want to acknowledge or talk about. My wife and I chose to use the pill for several years but discovered that it was masking some reproductive health issues when we started trying to conceive (polycystic ovary syndrome). There’s nothing to suggest that the pill contributed to this, but more than one doctor said she would have known something was wrong if she wasn’t on the pill. Thankfully we were able to conceive twice and for the past 9 years my wife certainly hasn’t had time to be idle, LOL.

    1. The problem with the 1st Amendment argument for Hobby Lobby is that your right to free exercise of religion ends where the rights of others begin. No matter how literally you read the Old Testament, you don’t get to stone adulterers. No matter what your religion says you can’t have slaves. The sttatute invests a right for workers to have adequate health coverage. I don’t think Hobby Lobby’s rights as an employer trumps the rights of its employees.

      1. As I understand the lawsuit, Hobby Lobby is specifically protesting before forced to pay for the “morning-after” pill and the “week-after” pill (not sure about the formal names for them).

        BC medication should be paid for by the couple, in my opinion, not by any employer.

        I’m talking about BC medicine used to prevent pregnancy; if they are required to treat some condition, then it is a like any other prescription and should be treated as such.

        1. The problem here is with the health care delivery setup in the US. The customer is the employer, the consumer is the person who gets coverage, the payor is the insurance company, and then there is the care delivery entity. So, Hobby Lobby doesn’t want to pay for (whatever, it is legally irrelevant the way current law is interpreted), but the payor covers it and the consumer wants it. The only answer that actually allows freedom of conscience while protecting the legal rights of consumers to utilize birth control (including abortifacients) is a single payor or socialized medicine system. OR a system where everyone purchases private insurance, which would translate into about 90% of Americans not having any health insurance. Check out “Delivering Health Care in America – A Systems Approach” by Shi Singh for a more detailed analysis.

        2. “BC medication should be paid for by the couple, in my opinion, not by any employer.”

          This controversy isn’t about anything paid for by Hobby Lobby. It is about what can or should be paid for by the *health insurance company* that the *employees* pay for out of the payroll deductions included in their fully loaded pay rate. The only reason Hobby Lobby is involved at all is that Congress has chosen to de facto require citizens’ premiums for group health plans to be funneled through employers, but that money is IMO not Hobby Lobby’s money, it is part of the employees’ pay.

      2. It’s considered at-will employment. No one is forcing anyone to work at Hobby Lobby. If you don’t like their benefits, you’re free to find employment elsewhere. Additionally there is no “right” to contraceptives and there’s no “right” to health care. Hobby Lobby is in no way infringing upon the rights of their employees. And your phrase “adequate health coverage” has no clear definition. The problem is given the diversity of our population there is no one standard of adequate health coverage.

        1. Thlipsis, your argument assumes a labor market in which any worker can easily find a job with good benefits whenever she or he wants to, and can change jobs with great ease. That may be true in a few geographic areas for a few vocational fields, but it’s not true by and large for 21st-century America.

        2. Big Gary,

          I understand the difference between theory and reality, and that is why as I mentioned in a different response somewhere in this thread, while I’m not thrilled with the idea, this is the one thing nationalized health care can do, protect the rights of employers. Unfortunately our government has shown it’s ineptitude in so many other areas I’m not sure that I want to trust them with this.

        3. Actually, adequate health coverage does now have a legal definition, as stipulated in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (usually called Affordable Care Act or ACA by people who want to conserve breath). The ACA stipulates the minimum coverage for health care plans, and bans practices such as excluding pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps on coverage. Employers are free to provide more generous coverage, and individuals can buy plans that provide greater coverage, but the ACA sets the baseline.

        4. Thlipsis, if you think unregulated employers as a whole are more trustworthy than a democratically-elected government, then we have an honest difference of opinion there.

        5. Big Gary,

          Just some last points and then I need to get back to my real job. One problem is that those who oversee the Affordable Care Act are not elected officials; they are appointed bureaucrats. They have little to no accountability to the general electorate. That doesn’t mean that I want an elected official administering this program because that would be an even bigger mess. But bureaucracy isn’t known for delivering great customer service…how many people look forward to going to the DMV?

          Secondly, to suggest that businesses aren’t regulated is not true My parents owned two different small businesses growing up and I witnessed first hand how my dad had to comply with state and federal law in several instances. Granted some businesses are regulated more than others but none of them are unregulated.

          As for adequate coverage, you’re right to point out that the Affordable Care Act defines it, but I think individuals should have much more freedom in determining what they need in the way of adequate coverage than the Federal Gov’t determining that. I know the argument is made that the states dictate adequate auto insurance but that is a completely different scenario than health insurance because my healthcare decisions don’t create liability issues for the people around me, at least not as directly as when I get behind the wheel of a car.

        6. “my healthcare decisions don’t create liability issues for the people around me, at least not as directly as when I get behind the wheel of a car.”

          Tell me, do you believe in immunizations?

        7. thlipsis, your argument is factually incorrect. There is absolutely a right to healthcare, and it is coded into US law, even at the Federal level. It is illegal, for example, for any healthcare delivery organization to refuse life saving care in any circumstance. That is a Federal law. Furthermore, the Patient protection and Affordable Care Act codifies what medical care must be covered by insurance companies (also Federal law). Most states have fairly significant statutes governing the health insurance industry regarding how plans can be sold and marketed, as well as significant regulation regarding equality of access, etc. I’m not sure what you meant, exactly, by your comment, but it is not factually accurate. And for what it s worth, I have an MBA in health sector management, so I realize that I have a higher level of knowledge on the topic than average.

        8. Thlipsis, I’m not saying that businesses have no regulation as it is; I’m saying that your argument is an argument against regulation.

          As to bureaucrats regulating health care, under the old system I had corporate bureaucrats at insurance companies overruling my doctors numerous times. They not only were not elected; they had no accountability to anyone except for-profit corporations whose interest was to take in as much as possible in premiums and pay out as little as possible in benefits.

        9. Dr. Fundystan, I stand corrected. I was not aware of federal law as obviously someone in your position is. I think the distinction I might make is between a legal obligation versus a basic constitutional right. While I do want affordable healthcare, and something that actually address the medical cost side of the equation, I don’t believe there is a constitutional right to affordable healthcare.

          Big Gary, I agree that even privately run insurance companies are bureaucracies and even have their own “death panels” in that someone determines whether or not a procedure will be covered or not (something that Sarah Palin seemed to overlook). But I do believe that private industry can operate much more efficiently and cost effectively than government can in most situations. With that said, I also acknowledge that the profit motive can create a whole different set of issues that must be addressed. In some ways it’s the lesser of two evils.

          Liutgard, I am not personally opposed to vaccinations though I know a number of people who are. My point is that trying to compare automobile insurance to health insurance is like trying to compare apples to oranges. They are not the same. You pay for auto insurance hoping that you never have to use it. You pay for health insurance knowing full well that you will use it.

        10. “I do believe that private industry can operate much more efficiently and cost effectively than government can in most situations.”

          That’s the conventional wisdom in this country, but at least in the case of health care, there is abundant and compelling data indicating that it is false. Government-run programs, such as the Veteran’s Affairs hospitals and Medicaid, while they have many problems, operate at a lower cost per patient, with higher patient-reported satisfaction, than their private equivalents. And Canadians, who have a universal single-payer system at the provincial level, report a much higher level of satisfaction with their system, than Americans do with ours. And the Canadian system costs much less per patient.

      3. Medical insurance is part of an employee’s compensation package- it’s THEIR money- they earned it. Hobby Lobby has no more right to tell them what to do with it than the cash in their paycheck.

        1. Hobby Lobby isn’t telling their employees what to do with their medical coverage or with their paycheck. They simply don’t want to be forced to provide services they find morally objectionable. If someone wants birth control or an abortion, Hobby Lobby isn’t preventing them from doing that. They just don’t want to pay for it. No one’s freedom is being impinged upon.

        2. *sigh*

          If it is part of the compensation package, then it belongss to the employee. Hobby Lobby isn’t actually paying for it, any more than they’re paying for the cigarettes an employee buys on tehir way home from work.

        3. Exactly. To be clear, Hobby Lobby never has to pay for the procedures they object to. They pay a prrmium to an insurance company for coverage. The insurance company has to pay for the procedure. There’s a level of separation there. Paying the insurance company for the policy that allows the insurance company to pay is no closer to being the one paying for the procedure itself than providing the paycheck with which the employee pays for the procedure.

        4. This may be the case, and it may not. Many large corporations insurance plans are self-funded and the provider is simply the manager of the system. I know this because I had to escalate within my company and someone very high up in HR basically told the Insurer to suck it and submit the invoice, that it was a legitimate exception to their care network because the required specialty care required was not available in-network and was referred by an in-network provider.

          I also don’t completely agree that it gives the employer cover, they are still “paying for it” on some level.

          I wish instead of federalizing and centralizing the system they would have fixed the regulations so care could be more directly managed by the employee/patient and their doctor while setting certain standards of care. If anything we should expect the best case scenario to be the government corpocracy ending up just as disfunctional and sociopathic as the ones the insurance companies have and so we have not fixed anything we have just moved the pieces around on the board to no effect.

    2. While the pill may make it easier for men and women alike to engage in extra-marital sex because it does significantly reduce one major consequence, it isn’t to blame.

      Except we don’t have any historical evidence that promiscuity was less prior to modern birth control. People do what people do; if consequences were a deterrent, no one would smoke or drive drunk.

      2. Perhaps faulty memory here, but I remember hearing about rejoicing about how the pill would be freedom from consequences, and people could now get together whenever they wanted.

        I’ve thought that the pill being made accessible to the public contributed to the sexual revolution.

        1. Perhaps some did “rejoice” at the lack of consequences of promiscuous sex, but in the early days of birth control pills, many (if not most) doctors would not even prescribe it to unmarried women because they didn’t want to contribute to immorality. In fact, some states (notably Maryland) made it a crime to prescribe it to single women.

        2. That may be true, GR, but one would have to look at data over long periods of time; there will always be short term variance (for example, I remember reading the memoir of a German sniper who told about how all the young people were going at it like rabbits because they thought they were all going to die).

        3. Guilt Ridden, the sexual revolution was largely a reaction against the neo-Victorian prudery and double standards of the 1950s, and would have occurred with or without the Pill. The same thing happened in Europe after the original Victorian era, for exactly the same reasons (and that one predated hormonal contraceptives by a half-century).

          If you tell young people that their options for the rest of their life are are a strict dichotomy between (1) a stale, stilted, prudish life lived in accordance with extremist Puritanical standards, or (2) wild abandon, a fair percentage will choose wild abandon. It happens in every culture and at every level of technology, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the availability of contraception.

    3. Thlipsis, while the SCOTUS thinks that companies are people, in real life they are not. The company of Hobby Lobby cannot have religious beliefs any more than my husband can give birth.

      If the people who started Hobby Lobby are against BC for religious reasons, that’s fine. However, if they are against it they should not engage in any business activity at all. Anyone who ever pays anyone for their time/service/knowledge needs to realize that the recipient might do any number of things with that money which the payer finds morally reprehensible or perhaps illegal. We can’t stop that.

      1. The idea that anyone’s employer should have a say in their private medical issues – that’s just bizarre. It’s an invasion of privacy and it’s a health hazard. I’m disgusted.

        2. If your employer is providing your health care, then yes, they should have a right to determine what services they provide or pay for because they bear part of the cost. If you’re paying solely for your insurance, then they shouldn’t. And again, Hobby Lobby isn’t telling their employees what they can and cannot do in regard to their own healthcare decisions. If you want to buy the pill or get an abortion, go ahead, we just don’t want to be responsible for that cost. That is not infringing upon anyone’s right to privacy in their healthcare matters.

        3. What society is moving closer to, admittedly in the face of great conservative opposition, is the notion that employers are not God, and that they actually owe their employees substantive renumeration for their services.

          Thus the idea that employees should be paid, if not a living wage, at least one that allows them to keep body and soul together, health care so that they are not a burden to society, and other benefits. Employers are not free to pay their employees nothing, nor to keep them locked up, along with a long list of other things.

          Those who do not wish to pay their employees well should not be in business.

        4. No thlipsis, that does not follow logically. The law does not distinguish between abortifacients or cancer care, etc. If the law decides that Hobby Lobby can refuse certain kinds of care, then all care is on the table. The next thing you know, every corporation in America is fundamentalist Christian Scientist. Imagine all the money they save! No, if an employer chooses to purchase an insurance plan for their employees, it should cover all medical procedures, not pick and choose.

        5. I live in a country where employers do NOT pay for health insurance. Thank God. You have a system where your medical fees are seen as being way too high for people to deal with on their own, and then say that if they want their employer’s help, they need to allow major invasions of their privacy. That’s abusive.

          If you want to make that argument, you need to have an alternative option. Affordable, reasonable health insurance that all people can access without going through their employers. IF you had that option, and going through your employer was just a secondary option, then your argument might make sense.

        6. “If your employer is providing your health care, then yes, they should have a right to determine what services they provide or pay for because they bear part of the cost. ”

          Hobby Lobby is not a health care provider.

          Hobby Lobby does not provide health care.

          Hobby Lobby is the Federally designated conduit by which a portion of their employees’ fully loaded gross pay is diverted to an insurance company or a health care management company that in turn pays health care providers. That is *all* Hobby Lobby is.

          I would also point out that until the Affordable Care Act was passed, Hobby Lobby employees’ health plan *DID* cover Plan B and whatnot, according to what I have read. They only discontinued coverage in 2012, immediately prior to filing the Federal lawsuit.

        7. I’d also point out that cost is not a factor at all in this controversy. Providing contraceptives is much cheaper than providing pregnancy and postpartum care. This is solely a question of whether the officers of a corporation can use the corporation’s leverage to impose their personal religious beliefs on their employees’ health care network.

      2. Slight difference to acknowledge at least is the difference between the person taking their paycheck and buying BC and the company being required to pay/cover the service and product. An employee/customer can easily take their talents and money elsewhere to find a job or product. Then everyone has their freedom.

      3. Who gets to determine the standards by which a corporation operates? Take for instance, Chik-Fil-A, which chooses not to be open on Sundays (as does Hobby Lobby) out of respect for the Sabbath. While I don’t agree with their understanding of God’s expectation for the Sabbath, what if an employee sued them arguing that by not being able to work on Sunday they are losing potential income? I’m not a Christian or I’m a Christian who disagrees with their position, therefore I’m going to force them to comply with my will. This becomes a huge slippery slope.

        And the SCOTUS recognizes that while a corporation is not technically a person, the fact that it is operated by people does not rob them of their constitutional rights. The Declaration of Independence clearly states that this nation was founded upon the premise that humans have been endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which as an 18th century euphemism for business profit and that the government does not possess the right to excessively interfere with those rights. And the 1st Amendment and the entire Bill of Rights was written specifically to protect those rights. I’m not saying there is great theology behind those ideas, but legally that is what defines this nation and it scares the crap out of me what people want to concede to the federal government, lest we forget that this nation’s government is of the people by the people for the people.

        1. If an employee at a retail business sued, saying he/she should be able to work any hours he/she chooses, that suit would be thrown out of court as frivolous so fast it would break the speed of sound.

        2. My point is simply this: their religious convictions have a direct impact on their job and no one seems to object to them being closed on Sundays. In part because there is no right to work. So why are they not allowed to exercise their religious freedom in this instance? Again, there is no right to employer paid contraceptives.

        3. The whole point is: Yes, there is such a right. It’s part of our social contract, and it’s encoded in federal law and in many state laws.

    4. So you think an employer has the right to decide which medical treatments an employee should have covered by insurance?

      What if the employer is a Christian Scientist who believes that all medical problems should be treated with prayer alone?

      What if the employer is a Jehovah’s Witness who believes that blood transfusions, or any treatment involving blood products, is evil?

      What if the employer believes that shamans exorcising evil spirits is the only valid form of treatment?

      What if the employer is a Fundy who says that all mental illnesses are simply a case of the person in question having a bad attitude?

      What if the employer is a Scientologist who sincerely believes that the answer to all problems is “auditing” (holding a couple of cans hooked to a meter while a Scientologist indoctrinates you)?

      What if the employer belongs to the vaccine denial movement and thinks that no one should be vaccinated against infectious diseases?

      If an employer has the right to decide what’s covered, based on the employer’s beliefs, then all of these non-hypothetical employers are free to provide coverage for only the treatments they approve of.

      Now, you may think that health care coverage should not be mandated at all (that’s the position I think the Hobby Lobby suit is a disguise for). But that battle has already been fought and resolved in both the Congress and the courts. So now the issue is who gets to decide what kind of medicine you should have. Do you decide, after consulting with doctors, or does someone who runs a crafts and hobby store or hairdressing salon or pool maintenance service decide?

      3. It’s called “at will employment.” No one is forcing anyone to work in these places. While I don’t like the idea of nationalized health care, that is perhaps the only solution that gets around protecting the right of the employer. But as long as employers are providing healthcare, then they should not be forced to compromise their convictions.

        1. That’s like saying that since employers provide food by paying wages, they should get to decide exactly what an employee’s whole family eats and when and how much.
          Health insurance is part of a worker’s compensation package. The employee doesn’t have to use it, any more than the employee has to eat potatoes, but that shouldn’t be the employer’s decision.

        2. A national single-payer system, such as many other countries have, would be much more rational and more economical. But that was never seriously considered as part of health-care reform in the U.S. Why? Because big business didn’t want it. Specifically, the enormous for-profit insurance and health care lobbies didn’t want it.

        3. Big Gary,

          This is one point that I fully agree with you. Insurance companies and many of the healthcare related businesses are part of the obstacle that stands in the way of real healthcare reform. I remember reading an article about a doctor who operated a cash payment clinic and his costs were somewhere between 40-60% less than most medical clinics and the satisfaction level of his patients with the care they received was off the charts. I realize this wouldn’t work on a large scale, but it perhaps reveals one of the fatal flaws in our current system.

          I live in Rochester, MN, in the shadow of Mayo Clinic, and they basically drive the economy here (they employ 30,000+, my wife being one of them). And while I know they are often cited as a model of cost-effective healthcare delivery, it’s inevitable that the new multi-million dollar proton cancer treatment center they just built will inevitably drive up costs. And given the impact of the Affordable Care Act they have warned employees that within the next year the cost of insurance may double or triple, even though they run their own insurance company (MMSI). So even the Mayo model that President Obama cited on more than one occasion can’t really address the issue effectively.

      5. There probably isn’t a single good reason for stepping into this, but here goes. The owners of Hobby Lobby don’t seem to be so much interested in mandating what kind of healthcare their employees receive as they are in not being forced to finance the purchase of medicines used in a way that they find morally objectionable. If, as part of its compensation package, a company offers employees an insurance package that clearly stipulates that the insurance does not cover certain medical procedures or the elective use of various birth control medications, I don’t see this as being in any way comparable to the company presuming to tell the employees how to spend their own money.

        The main argument in Hobby Lobby’s favor would seem to be that by forcing the company to subsidize the use of the medications, the government is compelling the owners of said company to participate in what they believe to be sin. All of us hold certain moral values and it would have to be an extraordinary case where I would support anyone in authority being given the power to force someone to violate their conscience. Of course this particular issue may eventually become moot in the not entirely improbable event that the country adopts nationalized healthcare.

        1. The government forces people to subsidize things they don’t agree with all the time. That’s how government works. I don’t agree with the gigantic subsidies and gargantuan tax breaks the government gives to oil and gas companies. Pacifists object, on religious and moral grounds, to paying for wars. Yet the government uses our tax money as it sees fit.

          In the same way, the government mandates our private expenditures for all manner of things. In my state, I don’t get reimbursed for the cost of jury duty (there’s a joke per diem of something like $3.50). I’m legally required to buy auto insurance before I can drive a car. The city will fine me if I don’t keep my lawn mowed and my house painted, which means that at the very least, I have to buy a lawnmower, painting supplies, etc., and if I can’t do those jobs myself I have to pay someone to do them. It’s illegal in this town to be nude in public, which means, practically speaking, that I have to buy clothes, even if i don’t want to.

      6. you said big Gary. I’ve went round and round with some in the forum over this. You said it way better than me.

        Single payer. it is absolutely the only way to go.
        Think birth control is wrong? Don’t get it.
        Think mental illness is a bad attitude? Suck it up.
        Think people should live puritanical lives? Good. Do it. But don’t force it on me!!

        All these puritanical fools who insist that birth control violates their religious freedom drive me crazy. Learn some basic science, please.

        1. The disciples of Jesus Christ paid tribute to a Roman government that used some of that money for bad purposes. There is a distinction, however; between a government misusing tax money and a government directly forcing individuals to actively take part in activities they feel are morally wrong. As a crude illustration, it is one thing for our government to funnel some of our tax dollars to groups like Planned Parenthood, but it would it would be an entirely different matter if the government were to demand that pro-life doctors take part in performing abortions or were to demand that devout Catholics write checks directly to Planned Parenthood. On the insurance issue, the owners of Hobby Lobby do have a point.

          One thing that’s worth mentioning though, is the seeming contention that one individual’s refusal to finance a certain service for another individual equates to denying that second individual access to that service. To be honest, I find that idea offensive on a,couple of levels. In the first place, there is the implication that one person is somehow entitled to a portion of another person’s earnings. Second, there seems to be an implicit willingness to force an individual to violate his conscience by forcing him to take part in that which he feels is morally repugnant. For example, you may not agree with the Catholic Church’s teachings on artificial contraception and homosexuality, but from what you’ve written, I would suspect there’s a willingness on your part to force Catholic organizations to pr
          ovide insurance that includes contraceptives for its workers and also to permit adoptions to homosexual couples. On a personal level, as a former Catholic and former Fundamentalist, I am opposed to authoritarianism whether religious or governmental.

          Lastly, as much as we all like to believe that those who agree with us do so because they are wise and virtuous while those who disagree do so because they are ignorant fools, you were extremely uncharitable to those you argued with on the forum.

    5. I knew one woman who developed severe migraines — she was in tears every day from the pain. Her doc (NOT an NFP guy by any stretch) told her to stop taking the Pill, and the migraines subsided.

      Another woman I knew had a stroke at age 29. Her doc pinned down a combination of causes: smoking, excess alcohol consumption, and the Pill. Kind of a deadly cocktail.

      I know women who eat only organic this and vegetarian that, because they are so aware of environmental toxicity, yet they have no problem taking the Pill. One woman in particular — a very crunchy earth-mother type. I don’t understand it, personally. Even when I was a Very Bad Contracepting Catholic, I was afraid of the Pill. (Used barrier methods instead.)

      1. Statistically, the health risks of birth control drugs are far lower than the health risks of pregnancy. There are even some lowered risks of some serious diseases associated with hormonal contraceptives.

        That said, many birth control meds are counterindicated for women over 40 who smoke. If a woman chooses to ignore that advisory, it’s not really the fault of the pills.
        That’s about like me taking penicillin, knowing full well that I’m allergic to it, and then getting mad at the pharmaceutical company when I have a bad reaction.

      2. People who smoke and drink to excess are already at greatly increased risk of a stroke. So it’s pretty hard to blame the Pill for that one.

        2. Have the doctor call me, and I will.
          I don’t think any competent doctor would definitively attribute a vascular accident to just one cause when there are a whole raft of risk factors.

        3. The combination of factors increases the risk of having a blood clot or stroke. The Pill carries some increased risk but it’s not considered to be enough to worry about unless you also have other risk factors like obesity or smoking.

    6. Hobby Lobby is claiming a religious right to tell its employees they can’t have certain kinds of health care, particularly contraception.

      But Hobby Lobby is not a person. It has no religious convictions. It can change its religious “convictions” simply by modifying a piece of paper. Add someone else as a part-owner? Bam! Religious philosophy changes.

      Hobby Lobby is telling its employees that their individual rights or religious convictions do not matter. They are demanding that their employees conform to their desires on their own, unpaid time.

      And when it comes to a challenge between individual liberties and business liberties, individual liberties ought to win. You do what your conscience tells you to do with yourself. But don’t let your conscience tell you that you should be telling everyone else what they should and can do. The MOGs we collectively despise do this. They assume to themselves all the rights they do not give to others.

      Are we going to let businesses take away our rights?

      As for my daughter, when she goes to college I will be sure to have gotten her to the doctor and gotten her access to birth control. Not that I expect her to be sexually active. But schools, even “Christian” ones have high rape incidence. I don’t want my daughter to be burdened with a child by rape. And if she does engage in consensual sex, I love her enough to want her to have the ability to learn and grow without being an unwed mother.

      I am a father. I want to protect my children. Children don’t always do as they are told. Somehow I am not in the “you disobeyed and now this is your punishment that lasts forever” mode. When my daughter has children, I want them to be planned for, expected, and wanted.

      For many women, the child of rape is a constant reminder of her violation and trauma.

      The big reason people are against birth control is that they see Children as Consequences. If you have sex at the wrong time, you have to suffer the consequences. They do not see Children as someone to love. They see them as a form of punishment, which may explain the high abuse rate for children in fundamentalism. Further proof of this is found in that most fundamentalists oppose food stamps, grants for education (so the mother can get a good job), assistance with daycare expenses, or health care that is affordable even to the impoverished. If the child were a blessing, they would want it taken care of, fed, and living in a good home where the parents made a decent living. Instead, by leaving all concern for life to before the birth, they show their utter disregard for life or a quality of life thereafter.

      I couldn’t make it all the way through his rant. I felt physically ill by it. The hatred, scorn, and derision for women or for personal decisions, and the utter lack of grace combined to make a message one would think came from the pit of hell.

  35. He was married when he was 19, not long after leading his wife to the Lord on the streets of Bavaria. In the 13 years since then, his wife has had 8 children; the oldest is 12.

    The Hobby Lobby issue he railed on and on about was not accurately presented. Hobby Lobby isn’t against birth control (they pay for most varieties); they’re against a few select “abortifacients.”

    I love that his website heralds the “thousands” saved since the church began 8 1/2 years ago, but their record attendance (according to his wife) was 118 this past Easter. I’m not saying it’s all about numbers or knocking the size of their church, but where are all those thousands? They’ve obviously been more concerned with numbers to publish than actual human beings to disciple.

    1. Meanwhile, Hobby Lobby’s owners invest in companies that make and sell those exact same “abortifacients.”
      See the report I linked to above.

  36. Interesting discussion…

    I only know Steve Anderson from what’s been posted here from time to time.

    He’s wrong that busy women (equals a woman with lots of kids) do not gossip; I know a mother of six who was busy spreading tales about questionable practices by church leadership – at least as she saw them.

    I think it’s pretty funny that he was caught by that fake ad with Annette Funicello.

    As I stated above, I do think that the availability of the pill did contribute to fornication. Clearly, there are some that are going to fool around regardless of what consequences may come. But there are some who keep back due to fear of consequences. It is this group that having the pill available would weaken the defenses.

    Steve Anderson (much as I don’t like to say this of him) is right that the Scriptures condemn sexual relations outside of marriage, and that is generally ignored these days. Plenty of people don’t care what the Bible says for one reason or another.

    1. “As I stated above, I do think that the availability of the pill did contribute to fornication. Clearly, there are some that are going to fool around regardless of what consequences may come. But there are some who keep back due to fear of consequences. It is this group that having the pill available would weaken the defenses.”

      So you’re arguing for external, rather than internal, controls?

      1. As an external control it is horribly inefficient. It would be much more efficient to jail people for fornication. That way, if someone “just couldn’t help themselves” and sinned, we wouldn’t end up with an innocent child than no one wants.

        4. How about taking Swift’s Modest Proposal and kick it up a few notches? After all, it’s just the most tender form of Long Pig, never gonna be missed. 😈

  37. Fred Clark (at the blog ‘Slacktivist’ on Patheos) made a prediction that in 2024, white right-wing evangelical doctrine will be 100% anti-birth control, and will be declared to always have been.

    1. We’ll see, I guess.
      Many years ago, Baptists were among the promoters of birth control for married people.

    2. Monty Python’s “Meaning of Life” will always be there to set the historical record straight.

      3. Not really on topic, but I understand when the members of Monty Python were advised to form a corporation for tax advantages in the U.S., they did and named it Evado-Tax, Inc.

    3. It is amazing how fast the militant evangelicals are turning against birth control. I just don’t see it taking that long.

  38. I find it so hard to look away that I’ve resorted to listening to his sermons while I get dressed in the morning. Every single one (Sunday AM, Sunday PM, Wednesday PM – three to thrive amirite AMEN?!) is online.

    1. With Anderson’s sermons, a different catch phrase is needed.
      “Three to shrivel up into a fetal position”?

  39. So, sex seems to be all about conception. Would that eliminate sex during non-fertile or pregnant times? I mean, I’ve definitely heard of this, mostly from reading about the FLDS, but not from a fundy. Thoughts?

    1. Pope (now Saint) John Paul II once said something similar.
      Perhaps coincidentally, he had no wife or girlfriend.

      1. He had a girlfriend when he was younger….before he entered the Priesthood obviously.

        1. how can i not say, lucky girl, that the holy JP has one smile he doesn’t always explain? 😯 😎

    2. Presumably that means that infertile couples (and post-menopausal women) aren’t allowed to have sex anymore.

      2. Wow. I never realized that for about 20 years we’ve been sinning in this area since there could be no more offspring.
        Oh, well. Might as well keep sinning.

        The lovely Mrs. WilverSpouse had some serious complications with our second. We were told they likely wouldn’t reoccur. When they did with the third, I thought, Hmmmm, the four kids we had sort of planned, or three kids and a wife. A no brainer to me, and Dr. Rodriguez and I saw to it that number four wouldn’t happen. I’ve been incapable of reproducing and faithful also. I wonder how I fit into Steve’s world. As a male, I can probably do as I please, since in his cult its would be considered the woman’s fault.

        On another note, I actually heard once that any sex except for the purpose of reproduction was a form of masturbation. I can’t remember just exactly what proof-text was used, but obviously he had never read Song of Solomon correctly.

        1. Yep. I think ol’ Steve would say that as long as you keep pissing against that wall, anything that goes wrong is the woman’s fault. The hussy. (No offense intended to Mrs. Wilverspouse.)

        2. If (it’s a big if) I ever win the lottery, just as soon as I put my down payment on that bridge in Brooklyn, I want to start up a bar and call it The Brazen Hussy.

        4. Sex only for the purpose of reproduction? It’s funny that Paul didn’t see fit to mention that in 1 Corinthians 7 when he specifically said that Christian husbands and wives SHOULDN’T be holding off from having marital relations, even for “spiritual” reasons. (Yes, you could refrain in order to pray, but it wasn’t to be for too long of a time.)

      3. Or to get married.

        If marriage is all about procreation, then older couples shouldn’t be allowed to get married. Infertile couples shouldn’t be allowed to get married — or if the infertility is discovered, a forced divorce should be imposed. And couples whose children have all left the home should be forced to divorce if they aren’t planning on having more children!

        If, as some say, marriage is only about procreation, having and raising children you bring into the world as a couple.

        Heh, the arguments made against “gay marriage” are ridiculous, seeing that their natural end would be to eliminate a lot of people from getting married or staying that way.

        2. John MacArthur has actually said that women over the age of 60 should not get married. If they are widowed, they are not to remarry because older women lose the desire to ever have sex.

          Ummm.

  40. Since I have chosen to be sterilized, I supposed I must be one of the most idle and wicked whores imaginable. Ironically, if sex is supposed to be primarily for offspring production, I now should be a celibate whore. . . whatever that is.

    1. Yup. I had to have a hysterectomy because of the endmetriosis, some 20 years ago. But I like sex, and I continue to have it as often as I can. (James does not object. 🙂 ) I’m a respectable woman, mother, grandmother, churchgoer, faithful voter, and I volunteer in in my community. I don’t have sex with whomever walks by- there’s only one man in my life, and after 15 years, I’m not planning on trading him in. And I certainly don’t have sex for pay.

      If this guy called me a whore within James’ hearing, he’d need new teeth. Of course, if I got there first, he wouldn’t have to get that vasectomy that he sorely needs.

      1. I really would like to see his reaction to what you’ve written here. A rational, calm explanation.

        I’d like to assume that medical necessity would “clear” you from being a whore, but I doubt it.

        1. Are you kidding? You think Stevie A is going to admit that some doctor, or a whole medical school faculty, for that matter, knows more about what’s best for women and their baby-makin’ parts than Steve does?

  41. I have a friend, who worked for Child Protective Services in the state of WV. A coworker from another county told him that he (the coworker) had to council a couple that had multiple children about birth control and supplied the couple with pills. Not long afterward the woman was pregnant again. The father said, “I don’t know how it happened, I took those pills faithfully!”

    1. That friend-of-a-friend anecdote reminds me of this old joke:
      A woman has one baby per year for ten years. But in the eleventh and twelfth years, she has no babies. Her best friend asks her, “So, do you think you’ll be having any more little ones?”
      “Oh, goodness, no,” says the mother. “I found out what was causing that.”

  42. His baby factory (oops, wife) gave birth to their 8th child yesterday, a boy named Boaz Barnabas. She was pregnant with twins but the other boy died several months ago due to twin-to-twin complications. Their oldest is 12.

  43. Annette Funicello is the ginchiest…. and babelicious. My Coppertone Cutie.
    God bless her.
    As for Steve Anderson, he keeps using that “w” word. I do not think it means what he thinks it means. May he find his bladder full and his knees too weak to stand.

  44. Having grown up in the oppressiveness of “light” fundy culture where women cannot serve in leadership except in music and children ministries and being told my sole purpose was to bear children and support a man of god, I use to shrink when I heard things like this.
    Now I realize it is a matter of fear. Fundy men fear–everything, but especially a strong woman. And that really gives women all the power. Too bad the women in the pews can’t hear that and accept that power.

  45. Even after nearly three years in this kind of church I cannot believe my ears that there are really people like this in the world. Much less in our country. I still find it hard to believe that people listen to this garbage Sunday after Sunday and don’t just have some sort of trap door contraption on the stage so when the Man of God starts going on a fear mongering Tirade some wise elder just pushes a button and the Man of God is replaced with an “out of order” sign on a boxing dummy in his place. There would be many services like this, probably to the point that the church would just skip the sermons altogether and go straight to potluck. That would be a win-win.

    By the way: He forgot one other -whore word, which is ATTENTION WHORE.

  49. Wow, the stupid coming from that guy is absolutely mind-numbing! It’s too bad these kinds of people are breeding like roaches.

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