News media & liberal sites lying about Hobby Lobby SCOTUS decision

The number of people claiming the Hobby Lobby SCOTUS case denies the “rights” of women is alarming. The Facebook posts are out-of-control and completely out of context. People should take the time to read and understand the case Hobby Lobby brought against the government and stop lying about the SCOTUS decision and the case.

The following national news stories are wrong. They are lying to the American people. They have an agenda. They are disregarding the facts of the case… on purpose. These examples also include misleading headlines and opening paragraphs. This is journalistic malpractice. More at the bottom of this post … I’ve got more than 15 wrong and misleading headlines or ledes!

  • Chicago TribuneSupreme Court ruling in Hobby Lobby birth-control mandate case.
  • ABC News: …the Supreme Court said today that two for profit corporations with sincerely held religious beliefs do not have to provide a full range of contraceptives at no cost to their employees pursuant to the Affordable Care Act. [ABC gets credit for at least using the term a “full range of” in their piece, but they make ZERO attempt to clearly explain things like I’ve done below.]
  • CNNThe 5-4 ruling says the health care act cannot force a “closely held company” to cover certain types of contraceptives for its employees… [Again, half-assed reporting and no effort to explain the case at all.]
  • NBC News: The U.S. Supreme Court, in a limited decision, ruled Monday that closely held, for-profit companies can claim a religious exemption to the Obamacare requirement that they provide health insurance coverage for contraceptives.
  • CBS News: Supreme Court exempts Hobby Lobby from Obamacare contraception mandate
  • Mother Jones: The court ruled that most companies do not have to cover contraception for their employees if the company has a religious objection to doing so.
  • Politico: The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby on Monday that for-profit employers with religious objections can opt out of providing contraception coverage under Obamacare.
  • Huffington Post: Hobby Lobby Still Covers Vasectomies And Viagra [Wow, what a way to twist the story!]

What is the truth?

Please share this with everyone you know via Facebook, Twitter and other social media!

So, should we just take the word of me, some not-so-well-known conservative writer on a blog? Nope, let’s get read the actual decision. Right from the syllabus with my emphasis in bold.

Nonexempt employers are generally required to provide coverage for the 20 contraceptive methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including the 4 that may have the effect of preventing an already fertilized egg from developing any further by inhibiting its attachment to the uterus.

Hobby Lobby sued because they …

… have sincere Christian belief that life begins at conception and that it would violate their religion to facilitate access to contraceptive drugs or devices that operate after that point.

They sued because the government mandate…

… requires them to provide health coverage for the four objectionable contraceptives.

Deroy Murdock at National Review sums it all up.

… Hobby Lobby’s health plan pays for 16 different kinds of contraceptives for its female employees!

In the Left’s fantasy world, the militant Christians at Hobby Lobby police single female employees to assure that they have not engaged in sinful, pre-marital sex. As for married women, Hobby Lobby deprives them of birth control so that each can deliver a new baby every nine months, for God’s glory, just like in the Old Testament.

Liberals are living in a cartoon of their own making.

Again, Hobby Lobby’s health plan pays for birth-control pills, vaginal rings, contraceptive patches, and other items to help female employees plan their pregnancies. The Left’s arguments to the contrary are — surprise, surprise — lies.

What Hobby Lobby will not cover are four contraceptive methods that its owners fear are abortifacients:

  • Plan B (“The Morning After Pill”)
  • Ella (a similar type of “emergency contraception”)
  • Copper Intra-Uterine Device
  • IUD with progestin

So if you were a new employee starting at Hobby Lobby next week, what contraceptives would Hobby Lobby cover in their plan?

  1. Male condoms
  2. Female condoms
  3. Diaphragms with spermicide
  4. Sponges with spermicide
  5. Cervical caps with spermicide
  6. Spermicide alone
  7. Birth-control pills with estrogen and progestin (“Combined Pill)
  8. Birth-control pills with progestin alone (“The Mini Pill)
  9. Birth control pills (extended/continuous use)
  10. Contraceptive patches
  11. Contraceptive rings
  12. Progestin injections
  13. Implantable rods
  14. Vasectomies
  15. Female sterilization surgeries
  16. Female sterilization implants

Get a clue people. Here are some additional totally twisted ledes in national news stories that mis-represent what’s happened.

  • ReutersAccording to a sharply divided 5-4 court, the government cannot compel a closely-held corporation to provide contraceptive coverage as part of its Affordable Care Act-mandated employee insurance plans.
  • LA Times: The Supreme Court’s decision to exempt some companies from covering birth control under Obamacare — and the reactions to its judgment — underscore one of the prime dividing lines in American politics: the practice of religion.
  • Associated Press: …the high court ruled Monday that some companies need not provide contraception to women as required by President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement.
  • New York TimesThe Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday that the government cannot force certain employers to pay for birth control was more than a rebuke to President Obama.
  • Fox News screwed it up tooThe Supreme Court ruled Monday that certain “closely held” for-profit businesses can cite religious objections in order to opt out of a requirement in ObamaCare to provide free contraceptive coverage for their employees. [But Charles Krauthamer got it right.]
  • Wall Street JournalMonday’s Supreme Court decision enabling some private companies to opt out of the federal health law’s contraception coverage requirements ignited partisan dueling over not just the 2010 health-care law but over a 1993 religious-freedom law cited in the decision.
  • BBCThe US Supreme Court has ruled a Christian-owned company can claim a religious exemption to a law requiring employers to pay for their workers’ contraception.
  • Daily Mail: Employers with religious objections CAN refuse to pay for contraception on Obamacare

Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

17 Comments

  1. Plainvillian on July 1, 2014 at 9:13 am

    Steve, your rebuttal will not fit on a bumper sticker or a 12 second broadcast soundbite between stories about the Kartrashians and sports. Therefore it has no place in professional journalism.
    Also lost in the frenzy of obfuscation is the pay scale for Hobby Lobby employees. That’s another story ignored in the storm of media bias.



  2. bien-pensant on July 1, 2014 at 9:26 am

    Liberals! Part of being a liberal is to never let the facts get in the way of their narrative.
    Read the actual ruling? LMAO!

    The left’s story line is opposite what is actually true. In their hysterical interpretation of the SCOTSU ruling, they would have everyone believing that women are being denied ALL contraceptives and being forced to follow the religion of their employer. Huh?!

    How much further from reality and the truth can the delusional left get?



  3. Dimsdale on July 1, 2014 at 9:57 am

    Hmmm, looks like a who’s who listing of all the reliably liberal news outlets, which, in fact, it is. I am sure Rush Limbaugh will have a tape of the simultaneous statements of prominent liberals that sound remarkably identical (remember “gravitas”?). Clearly the left leaning media got theirs, and the lefty pols are still trying to memorize theirs. It’s coming.

    “Liberals are living in a cartoon of their own making.” More accurately, it is a cartoon existence of their own contrivance; the low information voters (read it: Democrats) will quaff everything the media and the leftist pols bloviate the same way the late British comedian Benny Hill drank a beer.

    The Fourth Estate has transformed into Fifth Columnists.



  4. sammy22 on July 1, 2014 at 11:45 am

    Five men on the SCOTUS voted in favor of HL. One more time that I am thankful that I am not a woman.



    • Steve McGough on July 1, 2014 at 12:25 pm

      sammy22 has no comment on the actual content on this post, so he felt the need to enforce the non-existing conservative “war on women” by bashing the obviously uncaring men on the SCOTUS.



    • sammy22 on July 1, 2014 at 3:54 pm

      Steve, simply expressing my sincere beliefs. No need to bash me, the 5 five men got it wrong in my opinion. HL brought religion into this. I don’t believe in that argument.



    • Steve McGough on July 2, 2014 at 7:12 am

      You don’t get it do you? You read the article and had to attack based on gender instead of commenting on the actual content on the post. The media, Hillary Clinton and many others are outright LYING about the ruling and instead of not commenting or commenting on the actual content, you have to go and bash the males on the court. That tells us something about you.



    • Dimsdale on July 2, 2014 at 7:40 am

      He gets it, but there is no reply, even with liberal “logic” other than outright lying, which is what we are seeing in such great abundance. Lying and the falsely based misandry that necessarily accompanies it. SOP for liberals. Just like the deck of race cards that they are issued to use in defense of ?bama’s failed presidency.



    • sammy22 on July 2, 2014 at 11:18 am

      OK, the media lies;so does Limbaugh stating that this was a Constitutional issue. The SCOTUS based the decision on the Freedom of Religion Act, not the Constitution. You finessed the issue of religious freedom for a corporation, by piling on the media. That’s where it’s at, religious freedom, not providing contraception coverage, that apparently HL has been doing in spite of ACA.



    • Dimsdale on July 2, 2014 at 9:28 pm

      Surely it was at least as constitutional as the decision to allow abortions.



    • sammy22 on July 3, 2014 at 11:09 am

      Dims, Steve urged “all” to read the actual decision. At least read the summary (it’s not too long).



    • bien-pensant on July 5, 2014 at 9:55 am

      sammy22 admitted the liberal-leaning media lies! Stop the presses!
      That is historic and truly revolutionary for a liberal to admit to anything not on the democrat talking points or part of the democrat narrative.
      Perhaps, sammy22, while experiencing this epiphany, you would like to admit that lefty politicians lie about anything and everything, all the time.
      Sticking with the subject of Hobby Lobby (HL), how would you characterize the comments, Mrs. Clinton gave to the faithful concerning the SCOTUS decision specifically about HL?
      And, once again, Mr. Limbaugh is an entertainer. He speaks for no one except himself. Glad you listen, though.



    • sammy22 on July 6, 2014 at 2:56 pm

      Hey, b-p, glad to hear that Rush is an entertainer (so he/you say) and so then is Jim V, John Roland and etc. Not funny when they’re in a bashing mode.



    • bien-pensant on July 7, 2014 at 3:50 pm

      sammy22, why are you even on this post?
      It is obvious by your non-answer reply that you don’t believe Mrs. Clinton lied about the Hobby Lobby ruling.
      It is very clear to me that she lied about HL in service to the democrat narrative.
      :~(
      Can you HONESTLY state here that she did not lie?



    • sammy22 on July 7, 2014 at 9:16 pm

      B-p, if you check above this post is not about Hillary Clinton, which you decided to drag into the “conversation”. Check and see If I have something to say on the other post by Steve.



    • Dimsdale on July 8, 2014 at 9:08 pm

      “Five WHITE men” according to Harry Reid. BTW, I read the syllabus of the decision, which was quite succinct in its summary of the law.



  5. Lynn on July 1, 2014 at 3:54 pm

    I think that ” Newspeak” from George Orwell’s Novel “1984”describes what language all news media will be using soon. All contraceptives not covered = 4 not covered. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/1984/section11.rhtml
    Read to the end it pretty much covers what will be coming from 2014-2016.



featured-scotus-blgd

The website's content and articles were migrated to a new framework in October 2023. You may see [shortcodes in brackets] that do not make any sense. Please ignore that stuff. We may fix it at some point, but we do not have the time now.

You'll also note comments migrated over may have misplaced question marks and missing spaces. All comments were migrated, but trackbacks may not show.

The site is not broken.