By: Jeffrey Klein
Examiner.com

In an amazing turn of fate, it now appears as though the “firestorm” that has erupted, as a result of a thoughtless decision by President Obama, may actually be a key factor in wrestling control of the White House from him in November.

What ignited it?

Recently, Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, issued new directives for Obamacare mandating employers provide free contraception for female employees–in the form of abortion, sterilization and birth control methods and products–prescribed by Barack Obama himself.

As many people know, birth control–of any unnatural type–is absolutely anathema to the doctrines of the Catholic Church.

So, for the past two weeks since her announcement, Catholic pews and pulpits have been ablaze all over the United States, according to James Rosen’s FOXNews article yesterday.

“There can be no doubt that religious liberty in our country is in jeopardy,” Monsignor W. Ronald Jameson warned on Saturday from inside Washington’s historic Cathedral of St. Matthew. “This is the time to speak up. This is the time for all voices to be heard.”

Sebelius defended the [Obama] ruling as ‘striking the right balance between respecting religious freedom and providing critical health services to women,’ in a USA Today op-ed published Monday.

“This is not an easy issue,” Sebelius wrote, adding that the Obama administration had taken pains to make allowances for the church. “We specifically carved out from the policy religious organizations that primarily employ people of their own faith. This exemption includes churches and other houses of worship, and could also include other church-affiliated organizations.”

USA Today published a simultaneous rebuttal editorial, which condemned the rule as “bad policy and bad politics.” The paper’s editors went on to say that Catholic-run institutions that employ diverse populations “would be put in the impossibly awkward position of facilitating contraception even though the church teaches that it is ‘intrinsically wrong.’”

Clearly appearing as though he were walking barefoot on broken glass, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters Monday: “Those institutions where women of all faiths, many faiths work [sic] need to have the same kind of coverage that all other American women have.”

Catholic leaders point out that the many large Catholic-affiliated organizations – schools and colleges, hospitals, charities and the like – employ tens of thousands of people of all religious faiths, and as such will not qualify for the administration’s exemption.

However, the ‘compassionate’ White House and HHS have granted such organizations an extra year to come into compliance with the rule–similar in affect to requiring the HMS Titanic to spontaneously float to the surface of the ocean.

In an interview with Fox News religion correspondent Lauren Green, John Garvey, the president of Catholic University of America, said … “It shows an attitude on the government’s part that religion is something we’ll protect if it’s just happening in church on Sunday, or in the mosque on Friday, but if it has to do with your daily activity or the life you want to lead, it’s not something we want to protect.”

As a mistake in judgment, this assault on the Catholic Church could turn out to be one of the most dire missteps of Barack Obama’s entire presidency, while on the road to reelection, as their voting largesse is legion–especially if they are riled.

There are approximately 68 million Catholics in America, of whom about 35 million voted in 2008, which accounts for 27 percent of the total electorate. More importantly, data from seven battleground states–Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin– show Catholics comprise 25 percent or more of the electorate in each.

President Obama won the Catholic vote in 2008 by a 9 percentage-point margin, or 18 percent versus the Republican’s 9 percent.

In 2008, Obama was a spotless “messiah,” hoisted to the clouds by the mainstream media, who, flowing with strong tide of anti-Bush sentiment, “walked over water” to defeat John McCain, 53 percent to 47 percent in that contest.

This time around, Barack Obama’s presidency is a train wreck–factually more of a disaster than Jimmy Carter’s; plus, his support and enthusiasm amongst students, blacks and independents is down significantly–to the point where the mainstream media is setting the table for the tightest race in recent memory.

Even though I personally feel that Obama and the Democrats will suffer a “Shellacking: Part Deaux,” it would only take a point or two reversal in voting preference of the Catholic faithful, to escort him out of the White House.

It would be a truly great irony if this Barack Obama self-inflicted wound was actually our greatest “blessing in disguise.”

Copyright (c) 2012 by Jeffrey Klein