The so called "Catholic vote" will be an important constituency in the upcoming election. Thus, it doesn't seem to be a coincidence that the only real religious presence on Fox News is a conservative Catholic priest, Fr. Jonathan Morris who has used his Fox pulpit to preach about how the HHS contraceptive mandate is anathema to his church's "religious liberty." Given that GOP position on this mandate dovetails nicely with that of the Catholic Church, it's no coincidence that Fox "News" has a sweet quid-pro-quo arrangement with a church that has been actively preaching against Obama since the HHS mandate which, thanks to Fox News, has been and continues to be in the spotlight. This cozy relationship between the Catholic church and Fox is underscored by Fr. Morris' regular appearances. He gets to promote Catholic dogma that's consistent with that of the GOP. Fox gets to possibly bring Catholic sheaves into the "R" column and the Fox viewship base - a win, win for all. This morning, Morris provided an almost objective assessment of a Gallup poll on Catholic voters - that is until he skillfully interwove core "non-negotiable" Catholic teaching which, wink, wink, cautions Catholics against voting for Obama. Roger Ailes works in mysterious ways.

The topic for today's homily is the new Gallup poll that shows that the Catholic vote is evenly split for Obama and Romney. Morris talked about how, in past elections, the Catholic vote was an indicator of the winner of the presidential election. It was mentioned that Catholics have tended to lean Democratic. So it was all pretty fact based until Alysin Camerota noted that Catholics started "turning away from Obama from before this contraception controversy." That was Fr. Morris' cue to run with the agitprop ball that was tossed to him . He agreed that this "seems to be a fact" because "we've had four years of getting to know whether or not the president's stance is on some of these non-negotiable issues." He professed that he wasn't saying that "the Republicans represent the Catholics in totality, not at all; but in some of the non-negotiable issues like abortion, like religious freedom, like traditional marriage, the divide is very clear."

As the "Church Lady" would say, "isn't that special" that this isn't Fr. Morris' first use of his Fox pulpit to admonish Catholics that they really shouldn't be voting for Obama (or any Democrat) because of his support for abortion which is a "non-negotiable" position. It's also special that he included traditional marriage as a non-negotiable two days before a North   Carolina referendum on adding an anti-gay marriage/civil union amendment to the state constitution - the campaign for which the Catholic Church is actively campaigning.  And funny - of the five Catholic non-negotiables for the Catholic voter, poverty and immigration issues aren't included. It's all about abortion and teh gay. Thank Fox god Roger Ailes that Fr. Morris is here to remind Catholics that they're taking a dive into the lake of fire with a vote for Obama and those pro-choice, pro-gay marriage Democrats. As the "Church Lady" would say, "isn't that special..."