[Lamplighter]

The Catholic Bishops say it's not about contraceptives !
It's also about gay marriage and loss of control over their flocks.

NY Times
LAURIE GOODSTEIN
February 9, 2012
Bishops Were Prepared for Battle Over Birth Control Coverage

When after much internal debate the Obama administration finally announced
its decision to require religiously affiliated hospitals and universities to cover birth control
in their insurance plans, the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops were fully prepared for battle.

Seven months earlier, they had started laying the groundwork for a major new campaign
to combat what they saw as the growing threat to religious liberty,
including the legalization of same-sex marriage.
But the birth control mandate, issued on Jan. 20, was their Pearl Harbor.<snip>

On the day of the decision, bishops across the country posted similarly dire statements on their Web sites,
and at Mass on the following Sundays, priests read the bishops’ letters from their pulpits and wove
the religious freedom theme into their homilies.<snip>

The ruling issued by the Department of Health and Human Services,
said that only religious organizations that primarily employ and serve their co-religionists
would be exempt from the requirement to provide insurance that covers birth control.
Churches are therefore exempt, but Catholic hospitals, service agencies and colleges are not.

The White House said that 28 states already had such mandates, so this federal rule,
which is part of the health care overhaul just applies the mandate uniformly.