Poor President Clinton was in a bind. He had to live up to his campaign promises to the homosexual crowd, and they were objecting mightily to the exclusion of homosexuals from the military. His solution was the famous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. It was a brilliant compromise, appeasing both sides: homosexuals could be in the military, and the military could continue to exclude homosexuals. If that sounds illogical, it’s because it is. It’s a policy grounded on the conviction that people have no integrity as long as they’re getting their way. It was easy for both the military and the homosexuals to agree to lie to each other with the understanding that neither was to call the other out on their lie. That’s how the compromise worked. Brilliant.

President Obama has done a couple of things from time to time that have made me believe he’s in some kind of covert competition with Clinton. Clinton’s first agenda item was health insurance, but after months of hearings and whatnot, it was abandoned. Obama determined to succeed where Clinton failed. So he did, by bulldozing his obamacare through Congress without the lengthy and laborious research that Hillary Clinton pursued with the clintoncare initiative. He wisely sidestepped looking into any real facts as the Clintons had unwisely done.

It worked. So he tried the bulldozer technique also with the mandatory coverage of contraception in order to satisfy his Planned Parenthood supporters. But there he had to hit the pause button. As Mike Huckabee said, Obama had managed to do what no other person had ever been able to do, because “We’re all Catholics now.” (It was a humorous and heartening comment. It made me remember reading about Denmark’s unique response to Hitler: As soon as Hitler invaded Denmark, the universal edict was issued that all Jews must wear the yellow armband. The following day, almost all the Danes in Copenhagen, including the king, wore a yellow armband. They were all Jews that day.)

So—strategy change. Fall back. Do the Clinton compromise: Catholic institutions can be exempted while allowing mandated coverage of contraception to proceed. “If that sounds illogical, it’s because it is. It’s a policy grounded on the conviction that people have no integrity as long as they’re getting their way.” It’s the same compromise.

Of course, a few years later, it was decided that don’t-ask-don’t-tell was unconstitutional, so the morally silly compromise was abolished, and the military is forced to accept homosexuals. Just so, will Obama’s compromise for Catholics be overturned. It’s not fair, it’s not just, to exempt only Catholic organizations from mandated coverage of contraception. Everyone knows that, including Catholics. That exemption will likewise be abolished in a couple of years or so. To Planned Parenthood, he says, don’t worry, it will be easy to change this later, because it’s really unconstitutional, you know. And it is.

For Catholics, the question is—to what, exactly, do we adhere? For an answer, we could refer to Denmark: In the face of all the Gentile yellow armband wearers, the SS says, okay, we’ll let you Danish Jews go if you’ll overlook our slaughter of Jews everywhere else. Do we accept that kind of compromise? Are we willing to accept a compromise that says, if they’re Catholic, don’t demand that they adhere to the mandate; and, if you’re Catholic, don’t protest the mandate. Quietly accept it and we’ll let you be exempted from it . . . for now.