You're so right, Steve. The misperception of a very large number of people is that religion is obsessed with sex.

So, Steve, when's the last time you were in a church and heard about sex? When's the last time you saw a church publication about sex?

That's what I thought - you're resting on your prejudices.

I suppose you think that all Jews have long noses, too. And since that's the case, they should have nosectomies so as not to offend people, right?

As for sex education, it seems to me that the Catholic Church is in favor of it, and does a pretty good job of it in Catholic schools. And yeah, I'm sure there are exceptions.

With homosexuality, birth control, and a number of other sex issues in the Catholic Church, the right wing has taken these issues up in the last ten years and caused a lot of embarrassment for the rest of us. Before that, there were laws on the books that were largely ignored - I've read in the "legitimate" press that the Catholic Church had a "don't ask, don't tell" policy on many of these - until the conservatives found they could use them to gain power.

It's true that the Catholic church doesn't ordain women, but they have a lot of women in a lot of different jobs. For much of the last twenty years, the chancellor of our diocese has been a woman.

The truth of the matter, Steve, is that you don't really know. But that doesn't stop you from hurling accusations.

No, the Catholic Church isn't where I'd like it to be on a number of issues. But neither is it the seething morass of bigotry that you make it out to be. It is a highly political body, and it takes time for such entities to get things straight. I suppose you'd rather see it be an absolute but progressive monarchy, whose subjects all obeyed the whims of an enlightened despot.

It is what it is, and it is sometimes a mess. But it's messy because of its diversity.

-Joe Offer-