If there's one thing that riles up Bill O'Reilly more than anything, it's messing with his beloved Christianity. You may remember BillO went ballistic when John Edwards chose to hire two blogger friends of ours to help him with his presidential run who had no patience for the Catholic church and he savaged them.
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The story reached critical mass when it was picked up by Bill O'Reilly of the O'Reilly Factor. The O'Reilly Factor is the highest rated show in cable news with millions of viewers. As the show was on the air talking about the situation on the John Edwards campaign staff, Amanda Marcotte announced her resignation. The next day, 13 February 2007, Melissa McEwan also resigned.
BillO opined in his talking points segment about Obama's meeting with Pope Francis. While Bill admitted that the Pope and the President share the same social justice views, he also hammered away at Obamacare and including contraception coverage into the law. He's basically taking up the Hobby Lobby case without mentioning their name.
I laughed when Bill tried to lay out his vision for how the rich are supposed to help those in need under his own views on the Catholic doctrine. Creating opportunities for jobs was high on his list while complaining that Obama was "harming the population" by "confiscating" his funds to help the poors. Then he came out with his hammer on Obamacare:
O'Reilly: Now the bad news for Mr. Obama, the Vatican put forth of the president's policy of forcing Catholic nuns and other church agencies to provide birth control insurance including the morning after pill which is considered an abortion device which the church says is a violation of Christian doctrine and a violation of religious freedom. The Pope didn't say it directly to the president, but his representatives did.
....the Vatican believes President Obama is harming American Catholics and other Christians by forcing them to buy something that violates their religious beliefs.
As refreshing as Pope Francis has been, at this point in time there is no way he's going to change church doctrine on abortion and contraception, but the problem for Bill is that a super-majority of Catholics and Americans aren't buying what the Pope and the church's views are on contraception at all.
A resounding 82% of Catholics believe birth control is morally acceptable.
Eighty-two percent of U.S. Catholics say birth control is morally acceptable, nearing the 89% of all Americans and 90% of non-Catholics who agree. The level of acceptability on this issue is far greater than that of the other 17 issues Gallup asked about this year.
89% of all Americans believe birth control is morally acceptable so who is O'Reilly talking to anyway? A large number of Catholic woman use some form of birth control and they are most happy that it's covered under Obamacare. What BillO is doing is hurting all Catholic women who use birth control in this country with his mealymouthed attacks on contraception. Also, the church's views on contraception are having really nasty affects on the people who live in many other countries around the world.
