Obama Seriously Underestimates
American Catholics
WASHINGTON - Feb 3, 2012 - CathNews - The US Department of Health and Human Services’ recent refusal to expand the federal definition of religious employers who can be exempted from offering contraceptive and sterilisation coverage in their employee health insurance plans has stirred strong reactions, writes NCR Online in an editorial.
Some critics have evoked images of bygone American anti-Catholicism and claimed that the White House is at war with the church and has engaged in a historic assault on Catholicism. The reality hardly matches the claims. A narrow exception exists for religious organizations that teach that contraception or voluntary sterilization is sinful, but only if they employ primarily or exclusively members of their own faith, exist primarily for the inculcation of religious values and provide their services primarily to members of their own faith.
The exception does not extend to religiously run institutions such as schools, hospitals, and charitable and social service agencies that serve a broader public or have less exclusive employment policies, although the Catholic church considers the institutions and agencies it sponsors in these areas an integral part of its religious mission.
While no decision in a presidential election year is made without a political calculus, there is reason to believe the decision-making in this case was a bit more complex than “Let’s stick it to the Catholics and make our liberal, sectarian, pro-choice base happy.”
First, it would have been relatively easy simply to announce a continuation of a form of exemption that already existed. Second, what options exist for the pro-choice constituency? Newt Gingrich? Mitt Romney? As a political reality, the decision to give religious organisations a year to determine how to accommodate the decision was potentially more problematic politically than an extension of the status quo.
At the same time, it is clear that President Barack Obama has either seriously underestimated Catholic reaction across the board or decided he could play loose with the trust of Catholics who went out of their way to support him personally and his health care plan.
Is President Barack Obama playing loose with the trust of Catholics?