Voters generally dislike arguments about social issues, and tend to oppose whichever side they perceive as the aggressor in a fight over them. Proponents of the mandate have skillfully exploited this fact: That’s the point of their claims that Republicans are waging a war on women, and it’s why the Limbaugh comments were so damaging. During the debate over Blunt’s amendment, Democrats made it sound as though it would work a radical change in American law by allowing employers to veto their employees’ contraceptive decisions. Republicans did not do enough to make the case that all they were doing was preserving current policy. From the dawn of the republic until this very moment, no federal law has required any employer to provide insurance with coverage he finds objectionable. This freedom has not left Americans deprived of contraception or forced them to get permission from their employers to use it. It is this benign status quo that the Obama administration’s regulation will upset.

Republicans would also be wise to reiterate their support for access to contraception. Writing in Bloomberg View, libertarian journalist Virginia Postrel has argued that there is no good reason to continue to require women to get prescriptions to buy the birth-control pill. Perhaps Republicans should undercut the Democratic attack by advocating a Food and Drug Administration review of the policy…

The political parties are in effect placing a bet on whether Americans will mostly come to see the mandate in terms of religious freedom or in terms of women’s right to contraception. Some of the factors that make the Democratic bet look smart right now will fade over time. Santorum, for example, is likely to be out of the picture in the fall. The Catholic bishops have staying power, if they choose to use it. They can ask every parish in the country to include, among the prayers of the faithful at Mass, the plea that political leaders will respect the conscience rights of religious institutions — and they can do it every week. The narrative of imperiled access to contraception, on the other hand, may be hard to sustain for an entire year, contradicting as it does the lived reality of American life. The administration is committing a crime against conscience. It may turn out to have committed a political blunder as well.