The headline is misleading in the extreme. The Catholic Church has not "ruled" anything. One bishop in the Philippines proffered his opinion. Actual Catholic teaching is that anyone who is gay should not marry at all. I'm no longer a practicing Catholic and have no issue with gay marriage. What Archbishop Cruz…

I had a religion teacher and former seminarian explain the anti birth control thing to me as being open to God's will and open to your partner. It didn't actually help me understand how gay sex was that much different from straight sex with no potential for conception, as with people who are infertile or past…

I thought if it was "Chocolate City" they should have little chocolate Capitol Domes in it,like the fish in Phish food.

Ben and Jerry's is trying to do a D.C. ice cream.

Go home, Catholic church, you're drunk.

Outside of how enraging this is to the LGBT community, I feel so sorry for any Catholic couple out there who, for whatever reasons, is unable to reproduce and has to sit back while their church essential points out how fruitless (and Godless) their relationship is.

Exactly. It also is not that much more extreme than a lot of teachings about "submissive wives" that are common in fundamentalist churches—they just dress it up nicer, and don't advocate men hitting their wives (although they do generally apologize for it and blame the victim). Look up Debi Pearl, or Above Rubies,…

If you read the material (which is gross, so I would understand why one wouldn't want to), it's very difficult for the woman to withdraw consent after the couple has started practicing this dynamic. For example, there are no safe words, so if he decides she needs a spanking and she decides she wants out, she can't say…

I had the same upbringing, as a JW. My mother and little sister still are. My mom is married to an Elder and she often refers to him as the HoH and has to get his permission all the time. Sometimes I think she likes it simply as an excuse to get out of stuff, like "Oh, husband said no, sorry".

What bothers me about it is that women cannot be the dominant members. That's what differentiates it from a D/s relationship. You don't get to choose your role, it's chosen for you. Plus this sounds an awful lot more like abuse to me.

Some adults do consentingly participate in full power exchange relationships. However, they typically acknowledge at least part of the appeal of this type of relationship is sexual. What is concerning about this example is the suggestion that it's a religious mandate, that in order to be living right, all men,…

Jesus. Those kids are going to grow up with some seriously warped ideas about gender roles. How is that not some sort of child abuse?

This idea doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I went to a small Christian college in Ohio and things like this weren't common, but there was a definite air of submissiveness in the relationships. I was once told that because I didn't want to take my husbands name when/if I got married that God was going to punish…

I'm not longer particularly religious, but it infuriates me when idiots take Biblical verses totally out of context and use them for their own purposes. This line is part of an exhortation to early Christians to continue struggling to practice their faith even if people are violent to them. The analogy being made by…

Kinky sex doesn't normally involve taking away your partner's right to leave the house. This is Spousal Abuse 101.

This whole thing is fucked up, but I want to call attention to this bit in particular:

Everyone always looks at history and thinks they would have been on the side they are now - if you have a classroom of teenagers and ask them, would you have been an abolitionist, or a sufragette, the majority are going to say yes. But of course, at the time, the majority were for the status quo. People want to think…

The famous people who have their genealogy done on TV often seem to be exaggerating their emotions. Having said that, my husband is also a history enthusiast and comes from a family who came to America in the first half 17th century and never lived above the Mason-Dixon line. When I did his genealogy and discovered…

You're absolutely right. It still hurts my head, but I have family in the South (trust me, it needs to be capitalized here), and they have the same crazy rationale. "I'm not racist! I just miss the idea of the Confederacy!" Eep. Or, "I'm not racist! I watch Tyler Perry movies! They use the 'n' word, so I can too."

I have an entire storage facility filled with the fucks I do not give about celebrities but I grazed across Jez's articles on the lyrics Mr. West writes and I do not get it. If this is art, then I have an entire cellblock full of inmates that are budding superstars because I hear the same quality of spoken words…