Holy Health Care?

When I read that a group of Catholic bishops were largely responsible for shoe-horning an anti-choice bit of malfeasance into the House health reform bill, I almost choked. Since when do religious authorities get to write domestic health care policy?Now I know they merely used their "influence" over their parishioners to threaten lawmakers into hewing to Catholic dogma on the subject. Perhaps no church-state laws were actually broken. But here's my question:Why on earth do these ass hats have any "influence" over anyone? Recall that we are talking about the same religious authorities who stood by while their own members serially raped their parishioners, pardoned said rapists, then shifted them around to different parishes so that they could rape some more. The same authorities who oppose the distribution of condoms to stem the spread of AIDS. The same authorities who don't get married, don't have sex (in theory anyway) and don't get pregnant. They're deciding whether or not an abortion (still a legal procedure, remember) is covered under someone's insurance?I understand that there are a lot of Catholics in the US. I used to be one of them. Some of my favorite relatives are Catholic. But let's be honest for a minute here. Catholics have plenty of abortions. Lots of Catholics are pro-choice. So let's not pretend that this self-appointed High Committee Of Catholic Busybodies Nosing Into Other People's Reproductive Matters actually represent any one but themselves and their own backward worldview.And to the Catholics out there, please, take a stand here. Let your bishop know that you support reproductive freedom. Don't let your occasional appearance at church, or your reliance on the church for weddings and family functions, inflate their sense of importance. If they don't represent your views on reproductive freedom, tell them. Tell your priest after mass. Write a letter.Do something. Just don't let these men do something gross in your name.