It turns out that there is a spectrum of opinion on the subject in America, and they found a way to exploit that fact.
Now, the Pill has been with us for over fifty years, and the contraception revolution (often refered to as the 'sexual revolution') it unleashed had it's shock value in the Sixties, it's study to death in the Seventies, and became a part of the average baby boomer's ordinary life in the Eighties and beyond. For most of us, we got used to its implications at least a quarter of a century ago.
Clearly, that didn't happen to everybody. Now, if a decent pope had come around after Paul VI died, we might not even be having this debate, because the few other religions that abhor contraception have relatively tiny minorities in most places in the United States. Clearly, the vast majority of Catholics would have welcomed that, because they simply haven't waited for Pope Bob to come around and say, "Pill? Sure, no big deal! Just keep having sex only with your spouse, and I'm OK with it." They've been all ahead of the Northern European popes who simply have to prove to the Italians that they're not going to carry on the tradition of being hard asses.
Where does that leave us? People like ourselves who take contraception for granted as a normal part of health care, that should be a part of any basic package that would be provided without a deductable or co-pay (like an annual physical); those who still live in the Dark Ages who think that "be fruitful and multiply" still is a paramount human imperative; and those who are in the middle. They know that the first group is right, but they swear their public allegience to members of the second group. So, they prefer to think of contraception as "optional", meaning, if you want it, you can pay for it, your secular employer can pay for it, if I choose to work for a place that pays for it, that's my choice, but if you choose to work for the religious organizations run by the people who I pay lip service to on Sunday, then you can pay for it because that's your choice.
We're going to have to do a lot of work on that mushy middle, because right now, their clerics are gearing up for a great battle with the President and those who think like him on this subject. They also know it is a slippery slope, if contraception can be forced on them, what's to stop the government from requiring sterilizations and abortions to be performed in Catholic hospitals? What's to stop that government from forcing them to recognize nontraditional families?
They're going to pound it from the pulpit from now until Election Day, and while they'd love to have Sick Rantorum, a good Catholic boy to run against the President, they know that Mitt Romney will probably listen to his masters in Salt Lake City on this issue, too.
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