For today’s trick, Bryan Fischer from the American Family Association is on the anti-contraception pony, decrying policies that would make contraception more widely available, and declaring that he’s absolutely opposed to any policies wherein the government provides contraception to couples, married or not. Policies such as these, by the way, are one of the quickest ways to reduce the abortion rate, but the Religious Right doesn’t actually care about unborn babies; they care about whether people are having sex without their permission. And he seems to believe that married couples should be encouraged, by the government, to have at least three children:
If married folk want to have sex without having kids, let them get their own contraception. (To my squawkish friend on the left: note that I am not saying contraception should be illegal.) We want married couples to have more children, not fewer. Our problem is not that married couples are having too many kids, our problem is that they aren?t having enough.
Our fertility rate right now is barely at replacement level, and that?s with 40% of our children born out-of-wedlock — bastards, to use the quaint and correct term (dictionary: ?bastard: a person born of parents not married to each other?). That?s not name-calling, it?s telling the truth.
[…]
The last thing we need is any public policy that encourages married couples to have fewer children. In fact, the American standard ought to be a minimum of three children per married couple.
God?s original instruction to our first parents was to ?be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth.? This command, which theologians call the ?Cultural Mandate,? has never been rescinded. It?s still in effect today, just as much in effect as it was when first uttered 6,000 years ago.
In order to ?multiply? – that is, to grow in number – each couple has to have at least three children. If you have two, you’?re not multiplying, you’?re just replacing yourself. Now some couples may have infertility problems, or other medical problems. Such medical problems limited my wife and me, for instance, to two children. Those things are unavoidable in a fallen world.
Cool beans. When I MARRY A DUDE, I think three kids is a good number!
Anyway, I’m guessing that “Cultural Mandate” didn’t exist for the millions of years before “creation” 6,000 years ago? It’s so confusing, trying to reject all reality and enter the wingnut mind. Makes my brain hurt.
[h/t Kyle]
