Americans are almost evenly divided on the Obama administration’s decision to require private employers to provide free birth control with health insurance plans, and a majority wants the “Obamacare” law to be repealed, according to a poll released Thursday.

The Quinnipiac University nationwide survey found that 48 percent oppose the administration’s rule on contraceptives, while 47 percent favor it. The poll showed that 72 percent of Republicans oppose the mandate, and 69 percent of Democrats support it.

The administration created a firestorm Jan. 20 when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that religious-affiliated institutions including universities and hospitals would not be exempt under the new federal health care law to provide coverage of contraception.

Catholic bishops and leaders in other faiths protested the decision, leading Mr. Obama on Feb.

President Obama's "accommodation" to religious organizations earlier this month on the contraceptive coverage mandate has not quelled the furor as at least a half-dozen groups, primarily small, religiously affiliated colleges and universities, take the administration to court over the rule.

"The First Amendment protects Americans from mandates that require us to act against our own convictions," Geneva College President Ken Smith said in a statement.

But while the smaller schools are assailing the Obama administration in federal court over what they claim is an attack on First Amendment freedoms, big-time Catholic universities like Notre Dame and Georgetown appear to be hanging back -- some, like Georgetown, already offer optional contraceptive coverage...

The White House has indicated Obama administration officials will meet with religious employers over the controversial mandate that requires them to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions for their employees.

“The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that I will sign today -- a plan that meets the principles I laid out in January -- is the most sweeping economic recovery package in our history.” -- President Obama at the Feb. 17, 2009 signing of his stimulus first stimulus package in Denver.

The deteriorating situation in the Middle East may end up making this election an unexpected battle over foreign policy.

Given the new dangers and uncertainties sewn by the Arab Spring last year, particularly the emboldened regime in Iran and the anxiety in Israel, the chances for a regional conflagration are higher now than at any time since U.S. troops, now withdrawn, invaded Iraq in 2003.

That could bring $5 gasoline, economic disruption and a severe testing of old alliances.

Religious leaders told a House panel Thursday the Obama administration was violating basic rights to religious freedom with its policies for requiring that employees of religion-affiliated institutions have access to birth control coverage.

The unity of the religious leaders contrasted with the partisan divide among lawmakers on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, with Democrats saying they had been denied the ability to present witnesses who might support the government stance or speak for the rights of women to reproductive health coverage. They asked why not one of the 10 witnesses at the hearing was a woman.

The issue has sparked a political firestorm for the administration, with Catholics and other religious groups strongly protesting an original Health and Human Services ruling that religion-affiliated institutions such as hospitals and universities must include free birth control coverage in their employee health plans.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church said Thursday morning that leading Catholic organizations who seemed to initially support President Obama's latest contraception rule are growing increasingly hesitant as they study the changes in detail.

"It is instructive that as time as passed on and there has been further opportunity for analysis, there are questions the Catholic Health Association itself is rightly asking," said Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., testifying at a House hearing on religious freedom under the Obama administration.

Both the Catholic Health Association and Catholic Charities USA were cautiously supportive when the administration revised the mandate last week to exempt not just churches, but also religiously-affiliated hospitals, charities and schools from covering contraception for their employees.

But they later issued more doubtful statements, saying they were still trying to get answers about how the mandate would apply...

Barbara Boxer, the leading pro-abortion member of the U.S. Senate, made some comments in a recent MSNBC interview that are sparking outrage across the Internet today. Boxer essentially says the right to insurance trumps religious rights and freedoms.

The comments came during an interview concerning the controversial mandate pro-abortion President Barack Obama put in place recently requiring religious groups to pay for insurance coverage for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions.

As the Washington Examiner reports:

Senator Boxer warned yesterday that if the HHS contraception mandate was repealed it would set a dangerous precedence of religious rights trumping the right to be insured.

On MSNBC’s Politics Nation with Al Sharpton last night, Boxer affirmed that under the proposed amendment proposed by Sen. Roy Blunt, an employer would not be forced by the government to pay for medical practices against his religion...

The U.S. Senate may vote this afternoon on an amendment that would stop the mandate President Barack Obama put in place to force religious groups to pay for insurance coverage that includes birth control and abortion-causing drugs.

Last week, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid blocked a pro-life Republican senator from putting forward an amendment to a Senate bill that would prevent the controversial new Obamacare mandate from going into effect. Reid came under heavy for fire complaining that Republicans want to protect religious rights.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor following Reid’s objection to the “Religious Freedom” amendment offered by Sen.

The top U.S. Catholic bishop vowed legislative and court challenges Tuesday to a compromise by President Barack Obama to his healthcare mandate that now exempts religiously affiliated institutions from paying directly for birth control for their workers, instead making insurance companies responsible.

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, who heads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in an interview with The Associated Press that he trusted Obama wasn't anti-religious and intended to make good on his pledge to work with religious groups to fine-tune the mandate.

"I want to take him at his word," Dolan said in Rome, where he will be made a cardinal Saturday.

President Barack Obama’s right hand man said over the weekend that the revised mandate the administration put into place requiring insurance companies to distribute birth control and abortion-causing drugs to women at no cost is here to stay.

The Obama administration has revised its controversial mandate that had forced religious employers to pay for health insurance coverage that includes birth control and drugs like Plan B, the morning after pill, and ella that can cause abortions.

The revised Obama mandate will make religious groups contract with insurers to offer birth control and the potentially abortion-causing drugs to women at no cost. It will have religious employers refer women to their insurance company for coverage that still violates their moral and religious beliefs.