“It’s about the economy, stupid,” stated Bill Clinton’s adviser, John Carville, after George Bush Sr., was chased out of the White House by voters in a shattering electoral defeat, despite his victory in the first Gulf War. Political science experts are now using the phrase to assert that the state of the U.S. economy will be the central issue in the November 2012 elections. They aren’t wrong, of course. Issues of employment and the debt are clearly at the heart of Americans’ concerns. But this summary of the issues lacks nuance and obscures the importance of unavoidable battles on “values.” The stunning skirmish played out this week between the administration and the American Catholic hierarchy, over a provision in Obama’s proposed health law that will force hospitals and other Catholic institutions to provide reimbursement to their employees for oral contraceptives, vividly demonstrates how the “cultural” wars and the question of “values” remain present in the political debate. As I have already noted several times in this blog, God is never far from the American political scene and He regularly unleashes storms. But a veritable hurricane has surfaced these past few days when a group fronted by Catholic bishops and led by Archbishop Timothy Dolan, along with religious organizations, Republican presidential candidates and even part of the Obama camp, mobilized to push back at the White House.
The decision, announced in August by health secretary Kathleen Sibelius, to make Catholic organizations such as hospitals and universities reimburse contraception (or sterilization) in contradiction with their ethical beliefs, was presented as a blatant attack on religious liberty. This Friday, at the annual CPAC conservative conference, candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum delightfully seized on the chance to denounce the president as “anti-religious,” as someone who would give the State the power to “interfere in people’s lives” and “control them.” This is simply an unconstitutional measure, cried Christian conservative Santorum, promising to protect the rights of a nation that “is for God, not for any government.”
Such an outcry, naturally unthinkable in France — where reimbursement for contraception has not raised an eyebrow in years — reflects an America divided, where one portion of the voters, generally Democrats, advocate for a woman’s individual right to plan for her sexuality while the other America speaks of religious freedom. To listen to both sides fighting on television and radio, it seems like a dialogue of the deaf, with each side loudly defending its moral and political beliefs.
But the president finally had to yield to pressure from Catholics and the right this Friday, when he made a rare appearance in the White House press room to announce a compromise.
Anxious not to start a quarrel with Catholic voters, which could cost him dearly in November, he somberly suggested that insurance companies bear the cost of contraception instead of imposing the cost on Catholic hospitals and institutions. This change risks criticism from feminist circles, the powerful Planned Parenthood and left-leaning Democrats, but the White House has clearly decided that it could not afford to let the Republicans take over this political avenue. Several Catholic organizations close to the administration, including a group of Catholic hospitals led by Sister Carol Keehan, have obviously pushed for a quick reaction, considering the disastrous implications this issue would have in the midst of the elections. Yet, it seems that the case was poorly managed at the White House and the president was not adequately briefed. “I felt like they had made a bad decision on principle, and politically it was a bad decision,” stated Sister Keehan. “I told [the president] that.” Vice President Joe Biden, himself a Catholic, had also urged for a quick compromise.
On Friday, Obama looked tired and somewhat frustrated to find himself under fire from critics accusing him of having an anti-religious agenda. “Catholic voters are an electoral hinge, always susceptible of switching from one side to the other, which is a real danger for Obama,”* confided conservative Richard Viguerie, a leading political marketing expert. Two of the principal Republican presidential candidates, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, are Catholic. But Catholic voters — a force of some 70 million people — vote for both parties. In 2008, 54 percent of Catholics chose Barack Obama.
Beyond the question of Catholic voters this fire is clearly not dying. The bishops have just published a statement in which they say they are still unhappy because the law still requires Americans to buy, and private insurance to pay for, sterilizations and forms of contraception against their religious beliefs. This issue reflects the DNA of this center-right nation, wherein religion is so central. In their fascinating 2004 book “The Right Nation,” The Economist journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge argue that in a country where 70 percent of Americans go to church on Sunday and about the same number say grace before each meal, the president has a small margin, bordered carefully by religious groups, in which to maneuver. They remind us that the Christian right has some 200 television stations across America and nearly 1,500 radio stations!
In such a country, it can’t be only about the economy, stupid!
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