Doug Heye wrote yesterday that “there are two basic unwritten rules in Massachusetts: don’t insult Catholics and don’t insult the Red Sox.” I don’t know much about baseball, but I do know something about Catholics.

Coakley — a Catholic herself — has a real Catholic problem, as Kathryn has written. And in a state which is 36 percent Catholic, that translates to a potential election problem.

Last Thursday, as NRO highlighted, Coakley said in a radio interview with Ken Pittman that Catholics “probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room” if they don’t want to distribute emergency contraception and that she would be in favor of passing a health-care bill that did not include conscience-clause exemptions for individuals who have personal or religious objections to abortion, something the president promised Catholics would be in the health-care legislation he eventually signed.

While not every Catholic agrees with the teaching of the Church on these issues, a plurality of voters still have a very healthy respect for the constitutional right to religious freedom and to the free exercise of that right by Catholic medical professionals and hospitals. Coakley’s assertion that liberal views on reproductive services ought to trump the rights of religious individuals and institutions does not sit well with voters, especially among voters who already distrust government expansion into health care.

In typical daft fashion, Coakley confirmed fears among Catholics that the expansion of government involvement in health care will come at the cost of limiting the freedom of Catholic doctors and hospitals to operate according to their Catholic principles.

CatholicVoteAction, a grassroots organization I also blog for, has placed 200,000 calls into Massachussetts since last week, saying in their brief message to voters that emergency rooms are no place for religious discrimination.

If Coakley loses the Catholic vote in the Bay State today, she can partially thank her own offensive comments to Catholics.

— Thomas Peters is the communications director for the American Principles Project, where he also blogs.