Washington D.C., Feb 5, 2012 / 15:33 pm
The growing Catholic outcry against a recent health insurance mandate could threaten President Obama’s support “among a key group of swing voters that was critical to his victory in 2008,” political writer George Condon says.
According to an analysis released by the Pew Research Center on Feb. 2, Catholics have shifted away from the Democratic Party since the 2008 election.
George E. Condon, Jr., a political writer for the nonpartisan National Journal, wrote in a Feb. 1 article that although Obama won the Catholic vote in the 2008 election, recent dissatisfaction among Catholics could be detrimental to his 2012 efforts for a second term.
Condon tied Obama’s change in political fortune to the Jan. 20 announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services that virtually all employers will be required to purchase health insurance that includes coverage for sterilization and contraception, as well as the drug Ella, which can cause early abortions.
The very narrow religious exemption to the mandate requires an organization to exist for the purpose of inculcating religious values and to restrict employment and its services primarily to fellow believers.