Contraception In America: Welcome to The Brave New GOP World of The 21st Century

As Lawrence pointed out last night, the Catholic Church's ban on contraception is the most widely ignored edict of the Catholic Church in America. Rick Santorum may be the one and only holdout. Mirroring the general population, 98% of sexually active Catholic women have used birth control. Nearly six-in-ten (58%) of Catholics agree with the Obama Administration's requirement that employers, including Church-related employers, such as hospitals and teaching institutions, cover contraception. Some, like DePaul University, the nation's largest Catholic university, already do. Here, the views of Catholics are surveyed:

Amid the controversy over the Obama Administration’s mandate that employers provide health insurance covering contraception and birth control at no cost to employees, a new national survey finds that nearly six-in-ten (58 percent) Catholic Americans generally support this requirement. A majority (55 percent) of all Americans also support the requirement.

The new survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute finds that a slim majority (52 percent) of Catholics also believe that religiously affiliated colleges and hospitals should have to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception or birth control at no cost. Among Catholic voters, however, only 45 percent support this requirement, while 52 percent oppose it.

“Catholics, like other Americans, generally support requiring employers to provide health care plans that cover birth control at no cost, and they make clear distinctions between two kinds of religious exemptions that have been at the heart of the controversy,” said Dr. Robert P. Jones, PRRI CEO. “While 6-in-10 Catholics agree that churches and other places of worship who mainly employ people of their own faith should be exempt, Catholics are more divided about whether the exemption should apply more broadly to religiously-affiliated colleges and hospitals.”

There is strong support, however, for exemptions for churches and other places of worship.

— Like other religious groups, a strong majority of all Catholics (59 percent), Catholic voters (68 percent) and white Catholics (72 percent) say that churches and other places of worship should not be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception.

— Nearly 6-in-10 (57 percent) of Americans agree that churches should not be required to provide contraception coverage. Less than 4-in-10 (36 percent) say that they should be required to do so.

It should be reiterated that churches are exempt from the health care mandate. The new rule requiring coverage of contraceptives applies to Catholic-affiliated schools and hospitals. Survey shows: It has broad support among Catholics. Democrats, as is their wont, are already waffling. Democratic women, by contrast, are standing strong. Maybe they need to take colleagues like Joe Manchin out to the woodshed.

Over on the Dark Side, Mr. 1% plays the natural hypocrite while six of his GOP colleagues in the Senate co-sponsored a federal contraception mandate in 2001. The Republican Party is a one-way Time Machine — Back to The Past. Why can't they just pile in and GO — leave the rest of us ALONE (trans: our CONSTITUTIONAL right to privacy), and STOP Republican government probing of women's bodies. Here's a view from the Women's Pulpit of Living Life in The Real World.

Say what ... There's room in the Time Machine for an MSNBCer? Let's send Dylan — rage, rage against the Machine! — Ratigan. We'll keep Chris Hayes in hopes he'll be given Dylan's slot: