"...prohibiting free exercise thereof..."

It isn't the birth control issue, stupid.  I don't know of anyone who wants to control anybody else's sex life (other than the Democrats that want to force us all to accept all sexual practices as legitimate and normal).

I, personally, am pro-life.  I have carried two babies, and started feeling them move at about twelve or thirteen weeks after they were conceived.  I know they were alive.  I believe that abortion should not be legal after about the eight week mark when the heart starts beating on its own, unless something about the pregnancy is killing the baby.

Abortion is not contraception.  Contraception is the prevention of sperm and egg meeting, and/or the prevention of the implantation of the results of such.  Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy.  And, since most women don't know they're pregnant until they're about six or so weeks at the earliest, and most doctors won't see them until 9-12 weeks, abortion is murder.

I do not, however, foist my beliefs off on others.  If someone wants to get an abortion, let them pay for it themselves.  And may God have mercy on them. 

I deeply and powerfully resent the government telling me that I have to pay for abortions for stupid sluts that don't understand how to use contraception.

I also deeply resent the government telling a religious organization--any religious organization--that they must act against their beliefs to be in compliance with a law.  The text of the first amendment to the Constitution reads "Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

The Catholic Church doesn't require non-Catholics to abide by their beliefs.  They don't require non-Catholics to work for them, nor do they require non-Catholics that do work for them to abstain from using the birth control method of their choice, or from seeking to murder a baby in the womb.  The Church simply doesn't pay for such, because of a belief (right or wrong) that doing such is acting to take the timing out of God's hands.

Again, to make it clear: it's not the birth control, stupid--it's that we don't want to pay for someone else's consequence-free fornication.

Thank God so many are raising their voice against this law.  I wouldn't put it past the... individual... currently in office to pull a Henry II if it were just one bishop/archbishop/cardinal opposing him.