I don't think that word "Freedom" means what Conservatives think it means - or what they want us to think they mean.
And that, as you may well ask, is for a simple reason: they have become a cult, as rooted in irrationality as Jim Jones in Jonestown. They can't see sanity with a telescope these days, they're so far round the bend. When you can't win on facts or logic, or common sense, gotta go with "Faith". (That's Faith in the traditional authoritarian sense of "Because I say so!")
Conservatism is increasingly less about dealing with the real world and more about strict adherence to a set of core values and beliefs that deny it. Like any cult, it's about emphatically rejecting anything that contradicts its beliefs - and ignoring the contradictions within those beliefs. IE: government is always bad - but civil disobedience is wrong, taxes are always too high - and too many people don't pay them, the poor have too much - the rich don't have enough. Education and hard work are the route to success - but don't expect any help paying for that education, and don't expect to get paid too much because that's greedy. And so on.
The GOP's sudden hissy fit over religious freedom and their support of the Bishops also intersects on another level: money. But first, some context over the Orange Omnilepticon.
The hypocrisy and sanctimony here is ... not really all that surprising. It's what they do.
Conservatives are constantly ranting about the dangers of Big Government, of faceless bureaucrats taking control of their lives and taking their freedom away. But put bureaucrats into robes, let them wave bibles around, let them come from a Big Church - and all of a sudden you're evil if you don't submit to their authority. You're trampling on their freedom to tell you what to do with every aspect of your life.
It's funny how authoritarians of all stripes can cooperate when it means mutually enhancing their grip on their subjects. That's the real "Freedom" they're defending here.
They talk about the tyranny of the state - but they omit all mention that our Founding Fathers revolted against a state that based its legitimacy on a King ruling by divine right with an official church. They conveniently forget that the original colonists who came here for freedom to worship as they chose were also seeking freedom FROM religion - the one back in England that had no room for them. They forget that Rhode Island was founded by people who finally decided Church and State had to be separated so that ALL could have freedom for their own religion or no religion at all if they so desired.
And not all of those colonials were that concerned about religious freedom. In early Virginia, church and state were joined at the hip.
The initial Virginia colonists were not anti-religious; they considered religion to be a fundamental part of both life and government. They assumed the Anglican church would be the "established" church, supported by taxes that were imposed by governmental authority. From 1607 until the American Revolution, the Anglican church determined an official form of worship in Virginia, and Anglican leaders resolved theological disputes. Government and religious leadership were combined at the top. The King of England was the head of the Anglican Church, and King James (for whom Jamestown was named) had imposed a new translation of the Bible.
emphasis added
Perhaps that's why Thomas Jefferson of Virginia developed his views on the separation of Church and State - practical experience with the opposite. Perhaps that's why so many evangelical churches are based in Virginia - they long for the "traditional values" to return. You could go to jail for not paying your church taxes, or trying to start up a church from another denomination.
Conservatives also conveniently forget that back in 1960 they were screaming against John F. Kennedy, because as a Catholic president they said he would take his orders from the Pope. Now they scream because the President isn't taking his orders from a handful of unelected old white guys in the Catholic Church who can't even make their own female parishioners obey them on contraception. But that doesn't matter while they throw a hissy fit.
There are southern evangelical preachers bravely standing up for the right of Catholic Bishops to "follow their conscience" into the bedrooms of every woman (and man) in America. Funny too, when you consider it wasn't all that long ago that another southern institution considered Catholicism right up there with Communism as a threat to America and Democracy. Interesting bedfellows these strange politics have made.
Speaking of religious freedom, and the right to follow one's conscience, it's rather interesting to remember just what that has meant in America at other times. One reason there is a Southern Baptist Church today is because of little thing called the Civil War, when men and women of good conscience could not let a tyrannical government interfere with their God-given right to own slaves. As early as the 1840s, the split was already underway. (It's probably just a coincidence that the current hissy fit is happening with a President who happens to be black. Yeah. Coincidence.)
You know, this whole idea that contraception is unnatural and an abomination is rather an interesting position for conservatives to be defending, in a deja vu kind of way. The arguments against anesthesia way back when seem to sound like they come from the same mind set. But then, here's what one Conservative icon has to say about anesthesia and other advances:
Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.
emphasis added.
Note too that, it's all men in the rest of that speech - nary a woman in sight. Oh the irony! And the consistency.
There are a lot of people scratching their heads over why conservatives are making such a big deal about this now. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the Catholic Church has had to cover contraception in employee health plans in a number of states for years.
The giant hissy fit being thrown by Conservatives stands a good chance of alienating an awful lot of voters. People like sex - and they like being able to have sex even more when they can control whether or not it also means starting a family. Contraception is about real freedom, freedom to choose, freedom to decide what's right for them - rather than having someone else's morality imposed on them.
By the way, have you seen all those Catholic Bishop denunciations of advertising for erectile dysfunction medications? Me neither. Funny how none of those ads seem to show people using them to bring children into the world, which is the only proper use of sex (between one man and one woman in holy wedlock, of course.) Do you think Catholic Bishops would be appeased with a conscience clause that would allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for Viagra, unless a man seeking one could produce a marriage license, a note from his wife, and another from his clergyman? Strictly limited to an amount only enough to match up with one woman's monthly fertile cycle, and non-refillable without the aforesaid permissions?
And, there's one aspect to this ginned-up controversy I've yet to see anyone pick up on. The Catholic Church runs a huge medical empire. We're not just talking doing good works and healing the sick; we're talking about serious money.
And the power of that money is a tool the Bishops use to expand the reach of their doctrines. One of the key advantages their competitors have over Catholic healthcare institutions is that they are free to offer a whole range of reproductive healthcare treatments the Church refuses to - and the difference will only become greater as medical technologies based on embryonic stem cells become available. If the Bishops can impose their restrictions on everyone else under the guise of "conscience", they'll not only be restricting reproductive choice, they'll be eliminating choice in the marketplace.
The GOP understands monopoly power and rigging the marketplace at an instinctive level; they can't and won't talk about the financial side of this hissy fit they're throwing, but it's in there. Big money likes to look after big money wherever it comes from - and the political payoff from the Bishops is not to be scorned either.
As to why conservatives are doing this right now, I can speculate about some of the reasons. One is that they think it's an issue they can use to stir up their base, the part convinced that Obama is a secret muslim. The part that will oppose anything a black man proposes. It's playing the culture wars card, trying to divide up the Country with another wedge issue so they can suppress/discourage voters who would vote Democratic.
It's also about distraction - because the more people watch their presidential candidates pander to the extremist tea party/super rich GOP base, the lower they go in the polls. Every news story about the contraception hissy fit is one less look at CPAC and the loonies on display there, and their plans for America. It's the kind of thing Rove and the other spinmeisters do. When something's going on that you don't want people to notice, give them something else to occupy their attention.
And, it's because as a party of cynical aging white authoritarian males pandering to an aging bunch of extremist, paranoid, racist, hyper-religious low-information voters while trying to serve their super rich owners, they really don't have a lot else left in their tool kit. None of their Great Ideas work, they can't deliver on their promises, and they don't really believe in government or democracy even though they won't let anyone else have it.
The only way they can hope to get enough votes to win (aside from election-rigging, throwing around tons of money, and outright lies) is by asking people to vote for them as an act of faith.
And God help us all if they do!
UPDATE: If you want to know what happens when your health care is subject to Church approval - even if you are not Catholic, Jennifer Glass has a story for you.
When a Catholic organization hires employees from the general public, offers services to the general public, and accepts government money for those services, it should not be allowed to impose its theological conditions on its employees' health care choices by refusing to cover contraception. That is not religious freedom; that is religious imperialism and comes dangerously close to the "establishment of religion" that is prohibited by the Constitution.