The US Conference of Catholic Bishops is trying to play the martyr once more. This time, they are trying to claim the mantle of James Madison and Martin Luther King Jr. as they self-righteously hold themselves up as the defenders of religious liberty. If the bishops were truly honest and transparent about what they are doing, however, there’d be a revision of Dante’s sign hanging over the door to every bishop’s office and over the entrances to far too many catholic churches: “Abandon all independent thinking, ye who enter here”.

Sorry, your eminences, but the answer is no.

The conservative hunger for authority over others is perfectly visible in their ongoing war on women. Consider the pending legislation in Arizona that would require women to get the permission of their employers before insurance policies would cover birth control pills prescribed for health reasons other than preventing pregnancy. Or consider the wave of so-called “sonogram” bills initiated by conservatives so fanatic they mandate non-medical, trans-vaginal violation of women seeking pregnancy terminations.

More caving on mandated coverage of contraception from HHS and the Obama Administration. Religious groups that self-insure will be exempt from the rules, and HHS indicated that they are open to further weakening of the required coverages in the future.

Oh, and in a separate ruling, HHS declared that students at religious institutions (like Sandra Fluke) are SOL when it comes to being covered by this requirement of ACA.

There have been a disturbing number of instances in recent years when the level of political discourse coming mostly from the right has been so depressing that all you could do is weep for your country, if not the species.

Today’s example is the hate-filled debate between the GOP’s ugly faction and its cowardly faction over whether it’s okay to insult and slime any woman who has the courage to speak out on why health insurance should cover something so totally accepted and important to women as contraception. That’s right, the Republican party is actually having a debate about this.

Mitt Romney’s got a problem, when the discussion turns to opposing the mandate to provide contraception on the grounds of religious freedom. In the first Supreme Court case on the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment, Reynolds v US [98 U.S. 145 (1879)], George Reynolds argued that his religious beliefs should give him the freedom to ignore a law that is binding on others who don’t hold those beliefs. Reynolds lost, as have others who have tried to make that argument since then.

But what was the law that Reynolds broke? The law prohibiting polygamy.

The more that folks like the Catholic bishops and Roy Blunt want to talk about contraception, the more likely it is that folks will be looking at George Reynolds and his two wives.

And the last thing Romney wants to do is for people to start to talk about polygamy.

Voters are telling pollsters that the election this year will be all about jobs and the economy. With the economy still in bad shape, the so called “social issues” such as marriage equality and abortion barely even register with voters, according to a Gallup survey.

Dayen’s news roundup from Tuesday, February 21, noting stories about the Greek settlement and its pain, the AG-bank settlement and its holes and carve outs, the Supreme Court, unemployment, contraception, Virginia’s vaginal saga, marriage equality, and much more.

Henry James’ novella, The Aspern Papers, is about an unscrupulous obsessive who tries to deceive two vulnerable women to obtain the objects of his desire, the letters of a long-dead poet.

This, “The Aspirin Papers,” is about a group of unscrupulous obsessives who try to deceive all of America to fulfill their obsessive desire: a return to an ancient dreamtime when men ruled the universe and women, when not dutifully and passively prone before their masters, kept their mouths shut.

The arrogance and the foolishness of the imperious demands of Humanae Vitae encouraged millions to examine other teachings, and eventually to leave the faith of our ancestors.

Even though there was a lot of hyperventilating about how the original rule requiring employers to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives as part of free preventive care might hurt President Obama politically, the reality is the vast majority of the country supports the idea, even before the “accommodation” that garnered more support.