More Reports on Bishops Cranking Up Republican Voting Machine over Contraceptive Guidelines

More and more bishops are piling on, as the USCCB cranks up its Republican voting machine to try to use the HHS guidelines for contraceptive coverage to drive Catholic voters to the polls to vote "right" in 2012.  Several Catholic journals have just published online pieces that provide updated information about bishops issuing statements to do their bit to get the Republican machine cranking.

Human Rights and Catholic Conscience: Discerning History's Moral Arc

It's illuminating for me to read Jay Michaelson at Religion Dispatches today on the international struggle for LGBT human rights side by side with Christopher Brauchli at Common Dreams on how the U.S. Catholic bishops (and their defenders) persistently subordinate human rights to doctrinal purity when it comes to enforcing official Catholic sexual teaching.

Catholics Good, Jehovah's Witnesses Bad: Telling Admissions re: "Conscience Exemptions" Argument

Though Vincent Miller opposes the recent decision by the Obama administration to accept guidelines to make contraceptives accessible through health care plans, he recognizes that what he, the Catholic bishops, and their supporters are demanding vis-a-vis "conscience exemptions" is precisely what he would not endorse, if Jehovah's Witnesses sought conscience exemptions to deny blood transfusions to patients.  Miller writes: 

Catholic Bishops Crank Up Republican Voting Machine in Response to HHS Guidelines

Here is an example of the kind of wild over-the-top, scare-infused political rhetoric we can begin to expect from many U.S. Catholic bishops now that the Obama administration has accepted guidelines for HHS to require contraceptive coverage in health insurance plans: Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria says the new regulations may close down "every Catholic school, hospital, and other public ministries of our Church."

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: Tics, Gesticulations, Swoops, and Flourishes Amidst Liturgical Bedlam

So many droppings, so little time.  I want to frame today's piece with a snippet that a reader sent to Andrew Sullivan recently.  The following isn't the birdcage dropping per se.  Instead, please regard it as the scoop with which I'll then pick up the Catholic birdcage dropping on which I really intend to focus:

"Of Late, We Are Here": Remembering David Kato

A year ago today, human-rights activist David Kato, an out gay man, was bludgeoned to death at his home in Uganda.  Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall commemorate Kato and his legacy in a moving short film linked to this New York Times article today.

Amanda Marcotte on the Newt as the Living Id of the Republican Party: Entitlement and More Entitlement

Amanda Marcotte offers insightful analysis of the double standard used by American conservatives (and the mainstream media and religious right) to assess the sexual infractions of political leaders: if he's a rich, powerful white man with right-wing views, adultery and serial marriages don't matter at all, even if he's mouthing pieties about traditional family values while cheating on a string of wives: