Ah the pains of health insurance.

I know I have griped about the evils of health insurance before, but last night we noticed something new, and more frustrating than anything else we have seen. We found out that our insurance will pay for my wife to have an abortion but will not pay for her to have a mammogram. How's that for justice?

What do you mean there is no discipline?!!!

Mark Foley received no discipline for his "sexual advances to former teenage pages". The speaker of the house, Dennis Hastert, who knew about it but did nothing, received no discipline. What would the reaction have been if Foley had been a priest and Hastert had been a bishop?

My problem is not that Catholics, especially clergy, are held to a higher standard. We should be held to a higher standard, because, if anyone should know better than to sin, we should (CCC 598). All I wish is that the rest of the world, those who hold us to that standard, realized it.

What can you really say?

This is wonderful...

• Colorado Voters Pass Gay Marriage Ban, Reject Gay Benefits
• Tennessee Voters OK Amendment Banning Gay Marriage
• Wisconsin Voters Approve Amendment Banning Gay Marriage
• Gay Marriage Amendment Passes in Virginia
• South Carolina Voters Reject Gay Marriage
• Idaho voters approve gay marriage ban
• South Dakota also (good here, bad later)
  

...but a lot is not so nice:

• Arizonans reject gay marriage ban
• South Dakota Voters Reject Abortion Ban
• Oregon voters defeat a parental notification proposal
• California voters defeat a parental notification proposal

These last ones really make me the most upset. They rejected the law that minors have to notify parents before an abortion. Unless something changed that I didn't know about, minors can't vote! These are the parents saying, "I don't care if my daughter gets an abortion, and I don't even want to know." What are people thinking!?

Birth control is bad for your body!? Who would have guessed!?

I am continually baffled by the fact that people can't figure out that when you make your body stop doing what it is supposed to do, that is bad. Consider this:

"I sure feel good today. Will you hit me in the head so I have a headache?" - Ridiculous

"My blood pressure sure is good today. I better go get mad about something." - Ridiculous

"I sure do enjoy the use of my limbs. Would you break my arm, so I don't have to enjoy this any more?" - Ridiculous

"My fertility sure is working well today. I better do something to stop it." - Acceptable.

Why is that acceptable? Is there any other bodily function that when it is working right, we take medicine to make it stop working so well? I can't think of one. Why is this one area where so many people discard the best option and immediately go for second best? How often do you hear anyone promoting safer cigarettes? "Who could possibly consider not smoking at all? That would be way too hard." You don't hear that too much, but we definitely do hear it about sex. Abstinence is way too hard. We should promote something that is less effective rather than waste our time on it. I pray that some day the world will stop accepting mediocrity and start striving for the perfection that Christ modeled for us.

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This is a slide from an NFP talk I have seen. It outlines the side-effects of the various methods of regulating births. Click for larger size:

A reminder of things I find troubling in our world.

My wife and I, and of course the baby, had a little date this weekend. Since not everything is at your fingertips in rural Arkansas, we made the 45 minute trek to Red Lobster in Ft. Smith. We entered and were seated with a little stand to hold Isaac's car seat, and we ordered a margarita and an amaretto sour. My wife and I are 24 and 23 respectively and most people say we look younger, so we got carded as we usually do. Being carded typically frustrates me. Not because they do it, but because they usually make some kind of comment like, "Take it as a compliment," or "You'll appreciate it when you get older." Ha Ha.

This time however carried an added annoyance. Why is it that it is not a big deal for us to have a child at our age, but it is have a drink? Say they thought we were under 21, which they obviously thought was possible, (yes, I know they are supposed to card anyone who looks under 27 or whatever, but that is only because it is possible that they are under 21.) no one batted an eye at us having a child, but of course it would be the end of the world for someone underage to have a drink. You also have to remember that this is the bible belt, so I am sure there were plenty of people in there who think having a drink at any age will take you straight to Hell (and if you've never been in the bible belt, no, I'm not exaggerating).

I am sure that this was not nearly this complex to anyone else. I am sure that our waiter never even thought about these things, but that is essentially my point. If someone is responsible enough to care for the life and soul of another human being, one who is absolutely 100% reliant on them, shouldn't they be responsible enough to have a drink of alcohol? The problem is not that our waiter doesn't believe this. The problem is that there are so many people who do both, but are far from responsible enough for either.

It is simply sad to me that we see so much about keeping young people safe from drinking and smoking, but so little about keeping them chaste.