Why Contraception and Marriage are Still Political, and What's Wrong with That

Take a close look at the graphic above, which was created by the organization Doctors for America, a group who supports universal health care as a human right. (How can anyone not support that?)

It's only been about 40 days since we flipped the calendar to 2012, but I'm wondering now if we made a mistake and flipped it back a century or so. Issues I thought would have been long settled by now, including marriage equality and the protection of women's reproductive rights, are still part of the public discourse.

And here is the truth: Religion is part of the problem. Heck, it's not even part of the problem. Let's be honest. It's the problem.

Of the arguments I hear against gay marriage, almost 100% of them are religious. Regarding contraception (contraception, really!?!), all of the arguments against it are religious.

Sadly, religious people of a certain stripe want to tell other people how to live. Live and let live simply isn't a motto of the evangelical. They don't trust you to make your own choices about your love life, your marriage or your body, because you might make the wrong one.

Take a close look at the consequences of these choices, however. The real life consequences of gay marriage and contraception are private. They affect the people in the relationships and in the families.

But to the religious, the punishments for gay relationships and contraception use are eternal.

To which I simply say this: If you believe that being gay and/or using contraception is a sin and will damage your eternal soul, by all means, don't participate in gay sex and don't use birth control. You'd think it would be that simple.

Has anyone else noticed that this kind of preaching doesn't go both ways? No one is telling straight couples that they need to be gay. And, despite the recent furor over Catholic hospitals providing equal health benefits under the law, no one is telling Catholics (or Orthodox Jews or anyone else who has moral issues with birth control) that they must use it.

As I age, I find myself becoming more of an absolutist. Not necessarily a curmudgeon. I still like people just fine -- as long as those people don't want to tell me how to live based on some ancient religious fantasy of morality.

If you want the legal and biblical definitions of marriage to match, go ahead. I dare you. You might want to follow this guideline: