Apparently not...

Lets see how it pans out.

It's only politically risky if they allow the debate to be framed by the Corporate Media.

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Obama won the Catholic vote 56-44 in the last election. Catholics are concentrated in the battleground states. If he loses the Catholic vote he will lose those states and the election.

You may not be either. I simply stated a fact...23.9% of Americans are Catholic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States). Over 50% are women. How am I wrong?

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Maybe I am reading your post wrong. The fact that 50+% are women I don't think matters. People of faith usually put that first over personal conveniences. Catholics are concentrated in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania which will all be battleground states this election.

The fact is that NJ went for Kerry in 2004, when abortion was the Church's main issue. This is birth control. If the church could not get a win, in the wake of 911 - when both abortion and gay marriage were used against a religious Catholic, I don't see it now.

I grew up Catholic in the midwest. My mom told us that when she was in college in the 1940s she horrified her Catholic friends by arguing that birth control should be ok - and that to argue that the woman should not have that choice doubts the power of God. After all, if God really really wanted someone to be pregnant, couldn't he make birth control fail? She told us this as the mother of nine kids - she wanted a big family. Most of those friends had about 3 - evenly spaced.

The Catholic church lost the issue of birth control back in the early 1960s - or likely earlier in reality. Catholics may be 23.9% of the population, but there are many of them who have no problem with birth control. Not to mention, in the entire population, it is likely that the Republicans are the ones who will have a problem if they start treating birth control like abortion. Abortion is not far from 50%, but the support of birth control is very high.

It is not whether Catholics practice forms of birth control or not. The issue is whether Catholic institutions should be forced by the government to offer it to employees. And it is not limited to Catholics. In my area (Phoenix) Islamic leaders have been denouncing the policy in mosques.

The employer is not the direct contact that pays for healthcare - they buy a policy from an insurance company.

What about Christian Scientists who do not believe in medicine or surgery - at least not as a first resort? In their case, can they not provide any health care - other than prayer?

doesn't force anyone to take it. The Catholic hierarchy obviously doesn't 'trust' women to act on their 'right of conscience' and not take up the 'offer' if they believe as the hierarchy does that birth control is bad. As usual, the Catholic hierarchy underestimates women and continues to treat them as second-class citizens just as they have the children abused by their priests.

Catholics are leaving the church in droves and for good reason, imo. Soon, the only ones left will be of the Opus Dei variety.

are republicans, anyway. Like my republican, anti-choice family. They weren't going to vote for Obama if hell froze over!!

no matter what their religious belief. that includes Catholic women.

I don't know one Catholic woman who does not use birth control - tho, yes, I'm sure there is a tiny minority that does not. However, this issue is really one that a small slice of Americans disagree with - 98% of women in this nation includes all political parties, all religious groups - frankly, if the President had sided with the Catholic church on this, he wouldn't deserve to hold office, imo.

The issue is not who uses or doesn't use birth control. The issue is whether religious groups should be forced to offer birth control to their employees.

They are almost 100% Catholic and pay more attention to the Church than do Anglo-Catholics. CO, NV, and NM become endangered, and possibly CA.

don't march in lock-step with the church.......much as the church would like to force them to do so. There are a lot of Catholics who think the church has it all wrong when it comes to family planning matters.

Obama has always been pro-choice. I sincerely doubt that supporting PP is going to change the opinion of the Catholics who voted for him in the last election.

and regulations as all other employers--that's where religion ends. They can staff schools and hospitals with true-believer volunteers or nuns, if they want to be able to enforce tenets of their faith among their workers. I don't think he picked a fight, I think he's just holding them to the law.

...should be allowed to do whatever it wants. At that point, it is basically a church for sick people.

I reiterate, though; if they want to get involved in the national political debate, GIVE UP THE TAX-EXEMPT STATUS.

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but most Catholics I know are fine with this. I personally don't know any Catholics with more than 2 or 3 kids...my guess is ..they use birth control.

Many Catholic Universities, Hospitals already cover contraception in their health insurance plans. I think the media just wants something to talk about. ssdd.

people who would on camera self identify as being Catholic. Just an aside to the conversation on their morning commentary on tis subject.

were Catholic?

That could never happen of course.

Not that I'm against what he did on birth control.
Health insurance has to cover birth control or it is basically worthless.

No need to piss of the leaders of America's fastest growing religion.
Should have bribed them off instead first.

not the everyday Catholic, imo, except for the ones who are of the Opus Dei fundamentalist types. As for the cries of "oppression", well, this hierarchy is expert on oppressing others.

it's not like Obama chose to piss off the Catholic Church. Certain members of the church are turning a total non-issue into a political issue because certain clergy in the church are more interested in conservative politics than their actual religious calling. For the record the Pope these guys loved spent vastly more time talking about ending war, pro-unions, anti death penalty, and financial aid to the third world than he ever did about abortion and gays, yet all you ever hear is conservative talking points. I seriously think we are generation away from certain "Catholic clergy" opening up Catholic investments and claiming they're exempt from the FCC because of the first amendment.

they are no different, imo, than any political organization ie the repubs who use faux outrage to fill the coffers.

I have no quarrel with those practitioners of the faith who actually practice it, it is the hypocrites that offend me, the hierarchy hypocrites.

As to the current Pope, he was, and no doubt still is, pivotal in the protection of the child abusing priests. He is scum, imo.

The last decent Pope, imo, was Pope John XXIII. He, at least, tried to change the Church, with the calling of the Second Vatican Council.

but I doubt many of the so-called adherents really care.
And I bet most want to keep their birth control.

then find out that it was better not to believe them later.

anonymous Internet postings. Some days on DU, it seems like people choose to believe the worst about the President, before they've even put their socks on in the morning.

Unbelievable. And this, from highly respected posters, too.

My patience with doomsaying and bashing is gone. Campaign season is here.

Now that campaign season is here, I have even less patience for those who cannot appreciate the difference between President Obama and every other real candidate out there.

But you act as though this is settled. It is not.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/the-politics-of-obamas-contraception-decision/?hp

You may have misunderstood that subthread.

It's now election season, and you have no patience for bashers, etc. This was said in a context where you were celebrating with the other poster about how you weren't going to take anymore guff this election season, that you had heard naysayers saying Obama would back down from the Catholic contraception thing. And I'm saying this isn't settled yet. Obama has signaled a willingness to compromise. I don't know how this will come out; neither do you. I'm not naysaying. I'm question-marking, which might try your patience, given that you said you were depleted of patience, and given that you celebrated with the other poster as though this were settled policy.

I write what I want, and you write what you want. That's how it works.

Might there be a compromise? There usually is. Everything has to keep running in a society that is divided in many ways. I expect compromises. Sometimes, I hope for compromises, depending on the issue.

I have not lost my patience for the operation of a society. I have lost my patience with mindless bashing of every issue that does not go exactly as someone hopes it would go and is, hence, a complete disaster. Nothing goes exactly as anyone wants. Never has. Never will.

Look around you. We're a nation that is divided between two broadly different political sets of opinion. Sometimes one set of opinions is in power. Sometimes, the other is in power. We vote for that. In 2010, we voted for a Republican majority in the House. I didn't vote for that. I never vote for that. We lost that election, to be quite frank, and that's the reality we're dealing with. So, there will either be compromises or there will be nothing.

In 2012, we have another opportunity to elect a Democratic-controlled Congress and President. If we do that, we'll have fewer compromises. My loss of patience is with those who do not understand that simple reality. I don't expect that patience to return any time soon.

From now on, when someone says that I'd better believe some bullshit or another, I'm going to tell that person that, no, I'm not going to believe it. I'm going to continue right on trying to get a Democratic Congress and President elected. Anything that gets in the way of that will not get my patience. It will get my animosity.

I hope that's clearly enough stated for you.

The vast majority of Catholics are using birth control.
The Catholic Church and Southern Baptists must lose their tax-exempt status.

F@#$ the Vatican and their woman-hating, gay-hating, power-hungry ways.

and perhaps even now, are children lovers though. Not in a good way.

and I'm sure it's a dismayingly large number.

And the corrupt hierarchy will continue to do what it can to keep it quiet.