Half the problem is that Conservatives won't get masses of pissed off people in the streets but that's all the left understands.
Fortunately, I feel sure this will be different. There are more than a few Bishops who would very publicly lead demonstrations over those Civil fines and/or asset seizures, and I suspect the crowds supporting them will get very big, very fast. US media or not, the international media will have plenty of "photo ops" with Bishops, Priests, and little old ladies, being arrested or attacked by violent counter-demonstrators.
If history is any guide, though, millions of people who claim to be Conservative Christians will ignore the First Amendment implications and snicker at Catholics getting the shaft from the government. That's they what they did in the 1870s when the Catholic Church warned that public schools rather than a voucher system would lead to a secular, atheist, society where religion would be suppressed by the government.
The Civil War is a good analogy in this matter.
I just don't think so.
As I said, the regime will go into campaign mode and will present it as a question of forcing the patriarchal, woman-oppressing Church to pay for the health care needs of poor, underpaid, oppressed workers and their young children.
When you play the religious freedom angle, you get decent popular response. But when you play the “denial of healthcare,” even the “denial of contraceptives” angle, the Church comes out losing.
And the regime, through the lamestream media, has the loudest megaphone.
As well, the bishops are generally too compromised on the whole question. They're seen as swallowing camels (government-run health care) while straining at gnats (yelling about “religious freedom” over one detail of government-run health care).
It would require large numbers of bishops becoming actually Catholic and calling government-run health care what it is: intrinsically evil.
Perhaps God might bless us with such a miracle. But I'm not bettin’ the farm on it.
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