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.

Catholic Bishops who want the government to do what their own preaching cannot, Lutherans and Episcopalians who disagree with the Catholic bishops, and Virginia Republicans who give new meaning to the term “statutory rape.”

And you thought birth control was a settled issue.

Underpinning the bishops’ complaint about the Admistration’s rule to require contraception coverage in health insurance is the idea that nobody in America should have to assent to government policies that violate their personal beliefs. This comes as news to committed pacifists.

Senate Democrats have a plan for the payroll tax cut legislation that House Republicans basically gave up on yesterday. They can add the Unemployment Insurance extension and “doc fix” to the payroll bill, along with offsets for the UI and “fix” that the GOP might buy, and force the whole package on the House as the deadline nears.

We know that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has rejected the new compromise policy on birth control access, and that the Republican leadership agrees with them. But does that mean they have a chance to shift policy legislatively? The chances of that took a severe blow today, when Maine Republican Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins came out in favor of the Obama Administration’s new rules.

Catholic bishops had a mixed reaction to President Obama’s new plan for birth control access, which preserves universal, cost-free access and uses a Hawaii-type compromise to leave the religiously affiliated institutions out of the exchange of services between an insurance company and the employee.

An energized and battle-tested Planned Parenthood will issue a call to action to their members today to defend the President’s birth control policy and urge the White House not to give in to the fierce lobbying from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops by altering the policy in any way detrimental to universal access. The organization will send a message from Cecile Richards to all its members on the issue today, FDL News has leaned.

Administration officials are preparing the ground for some kind of rollback on universal access for birth control, after the US Conference of Catholic Bishops turned the issue into a major controversy. Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney hinted at changes to the regulations and other Admin sources dropped hints.

I didn’t think we had reached the point in America where providing free contraception would be seen as a risky political maneuver, but here we are. Last month, the Administration agreed to universal access to birth control as part of the Affordable Care Act. Insurance companies would need to provide coverage for contraception in both employer plans and on the insurance exchanges without a co-pay.

Daniel Avila, a lawyer for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, has resigned over a column he wrote ascribing same-sex attraction to Satan. Church Lady jokes aside, Avila’s resignation reveals a great deal about the USCCB’s efforts to get religious exemptions to various federal regulations on health care and providing social services with federal money.

Avila’s apology seems more aimed at his former employers at the USCCB than to LGBTs, which says a great deal about the political priorities and goals of the USCCB.