Birth control via Shutterstock

The Republican Party has been trying like crazy to disguise their attacks on women’s contraception as an issue of “religious freedom,” but the newest Bloomberg national poll shows that Americans are not buying their snake oil: Republicans Losing on Birth Control as 77% in Poll Spurn Debate.

Americans overwhelmingly regard the debate over President Barack Obama’s policy on employer-provided contraceptive coverage as a matter of women’s health, not religious freedom, rejecting Republicans’ rationale for opposing the rule. More than three-quarters say the topic shouldn’t even be a part of the U.S. political debate.

More than six in 10 respondents to a Bloomberg National Poll — including almost 70 percent of women — say the issue involves health care and access to birth control, according to the survey taken March 8-11.

That conflicts with Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, who say Obama is violating religious freedom by requiring employers — including those with religious objections to birth control — to provide a way for women to obtain contraceptive coverage as part of their insurance plans.

The results suggest the Republican candidates’ focus on contraception is out of sync with the U.S. public. Seventy-seven percent of poll respondents say birth control shouldn’t be a topic of the political debate, while 20 percent say it should.

One factor in these results: the disgusting misogynistic attacks launched by Rush Limbaugh against Sandra Fluke. When Limbaugh started spewing hatred at this young woman, he effectively destroyed the Republican Party’s “religious freedom” disguise, and made it appallingly clear that this initiative is about something much more primal — the compulsive need for reactionary sexist right wing men to control women.