Opinion

There are two vital debates happening in the political blogosphere and twitterverse right now.

One has to do with the Obama administration's health insurance mandate guaranteeing access to contraception, even if it collides with Catholic conscience.

Public health and women's autonomy collided with religion last week. Elders in the Catholic Church were incensed as the regulations implementing the federal healthcare law would have required institutions affiliated with the Church (but not the Church itself) to provide health plans covering contraception. The rules (part of the normal regulation-writing process that comes after a sweeping law is enacted) would not have forced the Church or its clergymen to hand out birth control; they only would have required Catholic-affiliated schools, hospitals, and universities to play by the rules everyone else has to follow, and provide for full healthcare coverage for women.

Take a look at the White House fact sheet just released on the president's "accommodation" on the Health and Human Services ruling on contraceptives and religious liberty:

So Rick Santorum says that he was not talking about over-emotional females when he raised objections to the idea of women in combat. Instead, he says, he was talking about how over-emotional males might behave. OK fine, so instead of insulting women, he's insulted men, and military men in particular.