The Little Sisters of the Poor is having a good Tuesday, much to the chagrin of a CNN court reporter.
The Supreme Court ruled this week that the Catholic religious order was properly given an exemption from an Obama-era directive requiring it include contraception in its healthcare plan. This is a big victory for a group whose mandatory participation in the mandate would have required it to violate its religious beliefs.
The case heard by the Supreme Court, Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, came about after New Jersey and Pennsylvania sued the Trump administration for granting the Catholic group an exemption from the contraception mandate. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas argued in the majority opinion that the exemptions were issued with the proper “statutory authority” and that the execution of said exemptions was “free from procedural defects.”
And here is the headline that CNN published shortly after the court announced its ruling: “Supreme Court says Trump can weaken Obamacare contraceptive mandate.”
Well, that is one way of looking at the conclusion of years of legal harassment of a group that looks after old and disabled people and just wants to follow Catholic teaching.
The CNN article continues, claiming, “The ruling is a win for President Donald Trump, who has vowed to act aggressively to protect what he and other conservatives frame as religious liberty, as well as for the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Roman Catholic religious order for women who, along with the Trump administration, asked the court to step in.”
“Frame” as religious liberty? A Catholic organization was ordered to do something that ran contrary to its religious beliefs, and CNN cannot bring itself to admit that there is a genuine issue here of religious liberty.
The report continues (emphasis added): “The Little Sisters case required the justices to balance concerns for women’s health care against claims of religious liberty. The law requires that employer-provided health insurance plans cover birth control as a preventive service at no cost.”
Ah, there is that “claims” again. Note that “concerns for women’s health care” are presented as exactly that, but that concerns about very real violations of “religious liberty” are merely “claims.”
“The dispute,” the CNN story continues, “pit supporters of the contraceptive provision against those who said it violated their religious and moral beliefs.”
“Those who said”!
Lastly, there are these targeted asides from the CNN report:
[…]
“By the government’s own estimate, between 75,000 to 125,000 women would lose coverage. At oral arguments held over the phone because of the coronavirus, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — participating from a hospital bed because of a gall bladder condition — lambasted the government’s position, arguing it would leave women “to hunt for other government programs that might cover them.”
If CNN’s framing of the Little Sisters’ victory surprises you, it should not. The author of the news report, CNN court reporter Ariane de Vogue, routinely publishes stories with a sharp left-wing tilt (see: this pro-Ruth Bader Ginsburg hagiography dressed up as hard news reporting).
It is not surprising that CNN, an increasingly partisan network, would characterize a religious liberty victory in strictly partisan terms. Welcome to the culture wars.
