Sparty writes

The new controversy over whether or not the federal government may require religiously affiliated health providers to provide birth control information and the means of birth control is another example of the vitriolic character of current American political discourse. Republican leadership has rushed to label it as "Obama's War on Religion."

Here is Sparty's take on it:

This controversy over the Obama administration "infringing on the religious liberty" of the Catholic church is another example of a non-issue becoming a defining issue in a campaign, and that birth control should be a defining issue of religious liberty is laughable. The Catholic hierarchy is going to war with the Administration over an issue that few Catholics believe in. Survey after survey over the past 40 years have shown that Catholic couples practice birth control at approximately the same rate as the U.S. population as a whole. Of course, you don't need a survey to show that, all you have to do is look at the families in the pews. How many Catholic couples today have more than two children, let alone the five or more that were so common in years past?

Catholic theology contains the concept of sensus fidelium - that moral truth is taught not only by the institutional church but also by the faith of the people. The bishops at Vatican II taught that the teaching of the institutional church must accept this teaching of the people when there was a consensus fidelium. There appears to be a consensus on birth control that eventually will be accepted by the men who wear the mitered hats. Unfortunately, it won't come prior to November 2012 so we will have to put up with the charade of one Republican after another being "shocked, just shocked" over the HHS ruling.