Here's my favorite passage from a story in the current Nation about the Quiverfull movement, the movement that encourages religious conservatives to attempt to breed an Army of God by having as many children as possible:

Rachel Scott, who calls herself a "one-woman Quiverfull activist," describes her conversion moment. One night after the birth of her fourth child--their third "oops" baby due to birth-control failures--when the prospect of tuition for four consumed husband Christopher and their pastor was urging vasectomy, Christopher saw a warrior angel in his dream. A "large, worrying warrior angel" with a flaming sword that he pointed at Christopher's genitals, telling him, "Do not change God's plan."

Yikes.

You know about these people -- David Brooks wrote about them approvingly in 2004, and I wrote a post about them (not approvingly) that year also. As the Nation story notes, they're cultural extremists -- they don't believe in gender equality in marriage or birth control for anyone. They read and write books with titles such as Birthing God's Mighty Warriors. Oh, and there's this:

Among the first contemporary Protestants advancing the theory that contraception is anathema to Scripture was Charles Provan, an independent Pennsylvania printer, lay theologian and father to ten who was until recently deeply involved in the Holocaust revisionist movement.

He's cited as an inspiration by current movement leaders.

So -- naturally -- the Democratic Leadership Council is looking for a way to liaise with them:

[Social scientist Philip Longman is] searching--at the request of the Democratic Leadership Council, which published his policy proposals in its Blueprint magazine--for a way to appeal to the same voters.

...Longman's answer ... is for progressives to beat conservatives by joining them, emulating the large patriarchal families that conservatives promote in order not to be overrun by a reactionary baby boom. Any mention of social good occurring in regions with low birthrates is swept away by the escalating rhetoric of a "birth dearth," a "baby bust," a dying hemisphere undone by its own progressive politics.

Close your eyes and think of President Hillary.

Meanwhile, there's this from the Catholic Church, which opposed contraception when opposing contraception wasn't cool:

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will examine a new document this week that gives an overview of Church teaching on married life and human sexuality.

Authored by the conference's Pro-Life Committee, Married Love and the Gift of Life is intended to help Catholics understand God's plan for married life and clarify why the Church cannot condone contraception....

Theresa Notare, assistant director for the bishops' Natural Family Planning Program, tells us this:

"... you don't even have to be religious at this point; a thinking person can look at how poorly we treat sexual intercourse and connect the dots to pedophilia, the gross rise in pornography, abortion, divorce, delay in age in marriage, and the number of children we're having."

We can have a long discussion about the other items, but pedophilia? That's a consequence of contraception?

This suggests that, after getting smacked in the head by reality in its own sexual-abuse scandals, the church still doesn't get it -- it still thinks pedophilia is not a deep-seated tendency but rather a lifestyle choice, one that's the fault of us nasty liberals because we dare to suggest that non-procreative sex can be fun without bringing about the end of civilization as we know it.

Then again, it's not just the church that has wacky ideas about all this -- there's also

Lionel Tiger, a professor of anthropology from Rutgers University and an atheist, who [at the recent national conference of Pro-Life Action Ministries] showed how the contraceptive mentality has affected men and possibly led to the rise in homosexuality.

Yup -- use birth control and you'll make your next-door neighbor gay. People actually believe this.