Congressman Akin - infamous for his statement that women’s bodies can prevent pregnancies in cases of “legitimate rape” - coordinates his activities with Catholic Archbishop Robert J. Carlson of St. Louis, as reported by Mary Ann McGivern, a blogger for the National Catholic Reporter.
That’s not surprising for a Republican politician with his grasp of science. In fact, many leading Republican politicians coordinate their activities with the Catholic Church.
Earlier this year, a media campaign by the bishops resulted in two Congressional hearings, legislation introduced in the House with 190 cosponsors and the Senate with 29, a lawsuit by seven state attorneys general and the support of three of the then four GOP presidential candidates, over the Affordable Care Act’s mandate of health insurance coverage for contraceptives.
Mitt Romney stated in July that “the president and his administration’s…attack on religious freedom I think is a dangerous and unfortunate precedent…. I feel that we're all Catholic today”
In August, Romney launched a 30-second TV ad featuring President Obama’s “war on religion” including footage of Pope John Paul II. The narrator asks, “When religious freedom is threatened, who do you want to stand with?”
What is surprising are the indications that the alliance forged between John Paul and Ronald Reagan uniting the Catholic Church with the 1% is losing more ground the closer we get to Election Day.
Not only is Obama leading in national polls, but he also holds a lead among Catholic voters, 49 to 41. Among church-going non-Hispanic Catholics Romney’s lead is slim, 46.6 to 45.3. Bush won 56 percent of the non-Hispanic Catholic vote in 2004. “Even Sen. John McCain won 52 percent of the non-Hispanic Catholic vote in 2008, despite running a poor campaign against Sen. Barack Obama’s wave.”
Perhaps it’s because most people know by now that 28 states had already required health insurance coverage for contraceptives with no protest from the GOP or Catholic prelates until this presidential election year which validates the charge that the alliance is, indeed, waging a “war against women.”
Maybe the accumulative effect of the sex abuse scandal has discredited the prelates sufficiently to nullify their influence.
Or maybe it’s just the natural result of what happens when organizations shape themselves into exclusive clubs for rich, heterosexual white guys and reject the rest of us.