So I have a friend who is studying religion and he is livid about the administration's decision about the birth control mandate. He lives in a separate news sphere from myself, and used to be a pretty energetic Democrat back in the day. Now that he is super Catholic, he is rabid about the church. While he and I will not be discussing theology any time soon (as I'm a godless liberal Saul Alinsky-ite from Mars) it is still interesting to have him in my circle because he gives me a window into the wingnut world. There was a recent article out on the website Catholicvote.org, which you can read here. It refutes the statistic that 98% of Catholics use birth control by pointing out that many of the respondents are not practicing Catholics or are Catholics in name only. As someone who is not religious, I had no idea about communion and the fact that many people in the survey were not eligible to take it, and that Sunday worship was a critical aspect of being Catholic. It does point out a failure in the survey. Also, most of the comments were akin to the fact that everyone thinks the Obama administration is lying and plotting for a federal government takeover of religion, realizing their "Left Behind" fantasies they secretly harbor. Now, at first, I was afraid that Obama had lost millions of people on a silly wedge issue, and that we could see President Santorum sitting in the Oval Office. I had my cyanide pills ready for such an occasion, but I thought about it, and to be honest, the narrative that this scenario has strengthened Obama's hand is actually made stronger. I read this situation different than the writer of the article.
The number of Catholics who might allow this to be a wedge issue drops considerably if we think of that number in terms of "practicing" Catholics, or those people who satisfy the requirement of taking communion and going to church each Sunday. From what I've seen of Catholicism, it is so intertwined into a person's identity, that it is an aspect of their culture, and while someone might not go to Sunday mass, they still see themselves as Catholic just as they might see themselves as Caucasian or a native of a certain city; it's ingrained into who and what you are. Their level of adherence to their religion is largely based on their personality. From my perspective, most people treat religion like a buffet. They get in line with the rest of the crowd, pick out the dishes they enjoy, and gleefully leave the rest. So, while the number of Catholics who may be against the contraception law might be high if you were to survey practicing Catholics (catch them right after mass or something), you'd be looking at a significantly smaller subset of "Catholics." I'm not going to go into the whole drama of who a "real Christian" is, which was something I thought was reserved for megachurch Rick Warren clones and their abstinence pledges, but the fact that you cannot pick and choose who identifies with your group has always been a factor with religion.
There is yet another dilemma here, and that is, even if you polled the devout, would they tell the truth? This is another problem with religion that I think it requires a non believer to point out. I can't imagine how many Catholics who go to mass and take part in all the cultural trappings of the religion break the tenets of their religion and have just gotten good at hiding it. It's the battle that occurs when one's belief system causes a crisis when it hits reality. Sure, some bishop may have received a revelation from the sky god that condoms are bad, or at least, condoms are worse than the Iraq war, and you may go to mass thinking the same thing, but when your sexual instinct comes to the fore, or you realize having seven kids is going to stretch your McDonald's salary, you might find yourself hiding condoms in the back of the dresser. My first taste of Catholicism was a movie (whose name I just cannot remember for the life of me now) where a very devout Catholic woman had an abortion for some reason. Of course, the act would invalidate her as a Catholic to many (forgiveness and all), she wanted to put the entire episode behind her and ask for God's forgiveness. Instead, a journalist uncovered her story and wrote her name in the paper, despite being told not to. The most powerful scene of the movie was the woman going down the street, picking up all the newspapers in the neighborhood, terrified that her neighbors might read about what happened. She then committed suicide, another decidedly un-Catholic thing to do. I thought to myself, "What kind unforgiving, hateful, disgusting religion would cause someone to do something like this? There was a better way for this to end, but no one involved felt they had a way out."
I am not fan of Catholicism (or most religions for that matter), and I know there are many practicing Catholics on this blog who will not like me saying this, but I really don't think a group of child molesters (i.e. the bishops who are leading the charge on this) should be lecturing others on morality. I think Obama has essentially calculated that the Catholics that will make this a big issue and who will seriously see this as divisive, would never vote for him anyways out of their clearly conservative views. The rest of them? Some might have a crisis of conscience and be faced with the fact that their progressive/liberal interpretation of the Bible does not jive with the fire and brimstone of their bishop, and will have to continue the self double-talk that plagues most religious people, others will simply come to terms with the fact religion is more like a social club than self development, and many will simply leave. In any case, I don't think Obama has made too many new enemies, and he has highlighted the fact that people want access to birth control. I still fear that Santorum will be the nominee and I'll have to see his arrogant face for months, but in the mean time, the Catholics who see this as the federal government invading their lives were probably already wingnutty to begin with, and nothing was going to really make them go for Obama in the first place.
9:28 PM PT: Excellent! This is what I wanted. I wanted some Catholics to start explaining this to me because I am wildly ignorant about the religion and its culture.