You Keep Using This Term "Natural Law" ...

But I don't think it means what you think it means. The notion of Natural Law has rattled around human thought for centuries - and the conception of it changes over time as well.

We keep finding Pope Benedict (Ratz) citing "Natural Law" every time we turn around:

For this reason, the Holy Father went on, "there is an urgent need to reflect upon the question of natural law and to rediscover its truth" which "is common to all mankind. ... This law has as its first and most general principle that of 'doing good and avoiding evil'," from which "derive all the other more specific principles that regulate ethical judgements on the rights and duties of everyone."

These include: "the principle of respect for human life from conception to natural end," because "life is not the property of man but a gratuitous gift of God;" and "the duty to seek the truth, a necessary supposition for all authentic human maturation." Another of the principles is human freedom, which since it "is always shared with others, ... can only be found in that which is common to everyone: the truth of human beings, the fundamental message of existence itself, in other words the 'lex naturalis'."

There are flawed assertions in here all over the place - starting with the basic premise that because we exist, some fuzzy cloud being must have had something to do with it. (I have no problem that some believe this, but I must point out the complete irony in attempting to derive some sort of "universal law of ethics/morals" from such an assumption - personally, I have very little problem with the idea that I'm more or less the happy result of a lot of coincidences over a long time)

"What we have said so far has very concrete applications if referred to the family," explained the Pope, "in other words 'the intimate partnership of married life and love established by the Creator and qualified by His laws.'

Uh huh. This wouldn't bother me if every time some religious nutbar wants to make their howling irrational arguments against someone or something justifies it by citing "natural law". Natural Law, such as it is, derives from nature - and presumably from our study thereof to some degree or another. Much of the time, when we hear "natural law" cited, it is in direct contravention of observable evidence.

For example, the Pope often cites "natural law" when talking about gay rights, or abortion. Yet the evidence in nature is incontrovertible - both occur quite naturally, and have always done so as far as recorded history goes.

The more correct assertion is that religious law proscribes those things. No matter how much one protests that scripture is the "divinely inspired" word of some deity or a "prophet", the fact remains that the claims of origin are unprovable, and therefore, one must also rationally consider the prospect that such "law" is nothing more than a human construct.

I'm not arguing that there is no need for moral and ethical discussion of issues, far from it. But rather, I am arguing that the foundations of such arguments must be honestly stated. Claiming that something is "natural law" is a cop-out in my view - a way to claim a validity for an argument which cannot otherwise be defended.