Daily links, Mon., Feb. 13, 2012: I give up! This is all about the mandate

First, the bishops' response to the federal accomodation: In short, no deal [1]. Rocco Palmo has some of the inside baseball stuff, including the "bishop only" letter [2] from the five bishops leading the effort against the mandate. Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory argues that the freedom of all people is at risk [3] if the mandate stands. On the distant other side, Sarah Posner at Religion Dispatches says the bishops don't have a legal leg [4] to stand on.

On to Catholic media: At Commonweal Margaret O'Brien Steinfels recovers former Boston Archbishop Richard Cushing [5]'s attitude toward the issue in his own day: "I have no right to impose my thinking, which is rooted in religious thought, on those who do not think as I do." He was speaking of the legalization of contraception in Massachusetts, if I read Steinfels correctly. Also at Commonweal, John Schwenkler tries to suss out whether the accomodation actually accomodates [6]. Over at Vox Nova, Mark Gordon suggests that religious freedom demands that pacifist Christians be allowed to withhold 60 percent of their taxes--the portion of the federal budget [7]devoted to the Pentagon.

And finishing out in the MSM: Andrew Sullivan says President Obama has set up the religious right for a fall with this mandate [8]--meaning that he thinks the U.S. bishops are part of the religious right. Ouch.