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WASHINGTON — About 50,000 riled-up Americans blitzed the White House Web site with e-mails voicing both opposition and support of President Obama’s controversial edict ordering faith-based institutions to provide free birth control to their workers.
Siding with Obama, 21,500 people signed on to White House petitions in support of the administration’s pro-birth-control policy, while 28,250 signed a petition to rescind it — showing the split national fervor over the matter.
Meanwhile, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan kept the pressure on yesterday, charging that the president has backtracked on assurances that he gave the Catholic church on the matter.
WHITE HOUSE TO ANNOUNCE ‘ACCOMMODATION’ ON CONTRACEPTION RULE
Dolan, the head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he met Obama in the Oval Office last November, where the president pledged dedication to protecting church principles.
Dolan got a call last month about the impending mandate and expressed his displeasure with the president.
“I said, ‘Sir, I was so bolstered by your assurances . . . What has happened? Why would you back down from that?’” Dolan told CBS News.
The White House had no response to the Dolan comments.
In New York, state law already mandates that all employers provide contraception as part of the health plans offered to employees. The state allows waivers for those faith-based affiliations that oppose the practice.
But Fordham University — citing the state law — said the Catholic school provides contraception coverage.
“Fordham University provides contraception to faculty and students as part of their health plans via insurance, according to state law,” Fordham spokesman Bob Howe said.
St. John’s University — New York’s largest Catholic college — declined comment.
The New York Archdiocese does not offer birth control to faculty and staff at its parochial schools.
Meanwhile, the Catholic University of America in Washington has purposefully stayed away from such plans, said spokesman Victor Nakar.
“First, it would force us to spend money to support things that we not only do not believe in, but also consider to be wrong and sinful,” Nakar said. “Second, it would cause us to contradict by our own actions that which we teach our students in the classroom to be wrong. It would make us behave like hypocrites.”
Conversely, a coalition of 22 Christian, Jewish and Muslim institutions expressed support yesterday for Obama.