WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's long-sluggish poll numbers have inched up, the unemployment rate has dropped five months in a row, the stock market shows signs of life and the Republican presidential contenders are slicing each other up in a primary battle that shows no sign of ending soon.
Yet just as some analysts have begun to suggest a sunnier political outlook for the president's re-election prospects, the White House is engaged in a highly charged dispute with Republicans and Catholic leaders over its mandate that religious institutions must provide contraceptives in their health care coverage. Opponents say it's government overreach that tramples religious freedom for those opposed to contraception as a matter of religious principle.
However, pollsters and strategists say the controversy — and the push for contraceptive coverage for all women — is a political plus with at least one key target audience: young, female voters, a large portion of the electorate.
"Contrary to conventional wisdom, this is a good fight," said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, whose surveys have found that voters across the board — including Catholic voters — support access to contraceptives. "It's a total win for the administration."
My own religious conviction is that God punishes us with disease and rewards us with good health, and that it is a sin to ever try to intervene in his will medically.
I'm therefore stripping practically everything out of my employees' policies. If I can't, I won't be able to sleep nights, because I would have a guilty conscience imagining to what unnatural ends they might choose to apply their insurance, and of course I can't be stopped from stripping out those policies, because my Republican friends are backing me on this, since it is a matter of my own religious freedom.
Plus, I save a lot on the health premiums I pay to cover my work force, since their pay package basically only includes chiropractic care and homeopathy, which don't offend my religious scruples because I deem them entirely ineffective.
Posted by: frank burnsf | February 09, 2012 at 07:10 PM
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Posted by: robertsewardz | February 10, 2012 at 07:39 AM
The contraception mandate has been a rule for years. The only differences in Obama's rules are they must be provided for free, and their are exceptions for churches.
http://m.npr.org/news/Health/146662285
Posted by: Cyndie Williams | February 10, 2012 at 10:38 AM
It's none of the maggot's business in any case; he claims to be both a 'Christian'
and an 'American'. These assertions are likely false based on the way the s.o.b. acts.
Posted by: tucanofulano | February 10, 2012 at 06:36 PM