Last Sunday I heard mass in the Parish of the Holy Sacrifice in UP and when I stepped out, the first thing that greeted me was the No-to-RH-Bill stickers that the church community must have posted around the area. It was a nice reminder to be vigilant, and to continue fighting for the true meaning of love and marriage.
But upon closer inspection, I noticed the stickers had been vandalized--some people crossed out the "No" and jotted in "Yes" in its place, others wrote "Dumb," and still others, with black permanent marker, wrote "F*ck the Pope" on the face of one of the stickers. :-(
I know UP is not a Catholic school, so there really will be people in the community who are not Catholics and do not study Catholic doctrine or try to live Christ's life. But you don't have to be Catholic to know respect for others, their freedom of speech and their freedom of religion. And you don't have to be Catholic to study the facts and figure out for yourself that the culture of contraception can impact our family-centered Filipino culture in many negative ways.
I found a very good article in Business Insider on the effects of the 1960s sexual revolution on our culture today. An excerpt:
How else are we doing since this great sexual revolution? Kim Kardashian's marriage lasted 72 days. Illegitimacy: way up. In 1960, 5.3% of all births in America were to unmarried women. By 2010, it was 40.8% [PDF]. In 1960 married families made up almost three-quarters of all households; but by the census of 2010 they accounted for just 48 percent of them. Cohabitation has increased tenfold since 1960.
And if you don't think women are being reduced to objects to satisfy men, welcome to the internet, how long have you been here? Government coercion: just look to China (or America, where a government rule on contraception coverage is the reason why we're talking about this right now).
Is this all due to the Pill? Of course not. But the idea that widely-available contraception hasn't led to dramatic societal change, or that this change has been exclusively to the good, is a much sillier notion than anything the Catholic Church teaches.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/time-to-admit-it-the-church-has-always-been-right-on-birth-control-2012-2#ixzz1qHQ8iyPZ
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In fact, I think you should go ahead and read the whole article. It's not too long.
I studied in UP, too, so for anyone else who is tempted to say something along the lines of "We in UP are Pro-RH," I say please stop generalizing. :-( I also suggest studying the whole issue and trying to see where we as citizens and as families fit in the picture. Think: What kind of world do you want to raise your own kids in?
