Lamar Smith Column: Media's Deafening Silence on ObamaCare Lawsuits Seems to Be Deliberate

Last month 43 Catholic institutions across America joined together to defend the First Amendment and filed a total of twelve lawsuits against the Administration in order to protect the right to freedom of religion on behalf of all Americans. 

This is the most significant religious lawsuit in U.S. history and Christian leaders all across America have joined in support of the Catholic institutions.  This lawsuit is not a single action by a few “out of touch religious leaders,” as the liberal national media would like to portray it. 

In addition to twelve various lawsuits against the mandate with a total of 43 plaintiffs from religious hospitals, colleges and universities, and dioceses, the U.S. Catholic Bishops are preparing for the largest campaign of civil disobedience since the 1960’s during the civil rights movement.     

Despite the unprecedented and historic nature of this event, the media has largely ignored it.  Bias by omission has been a repetitive theme among the liberal national media and this obvious showing of bias is almost as scary as the Obama administration’s battle against religious freedom.

The print media has buried it in the back pages of the newspapers.  The Washington Post, USA Today, and New York Times hardly gave the story coverage with a few paragraphs in the back of the first section.  The TV networks also swept the lawsuit under the rug.  NBC and ABC completely omitted the newsworthy suit impacting almost all Americans directly.  NBC did find time to air a story on comedian Kristin Wiig leaving the show Saturday Night Live and on the death of Eugene Polley, the inventor of the remote control.  CBS shared the news of the lawsuit with their audience for roughly twenty seconds. 

If the lawsuit is mentioned in the media at all, it is framed as an issue of a woman’s right to contraception.  Despite what the liberal national media may believe, the American people are smart enough to figure out the truth.  This is an issue much larger than birth control; it is about the fundamental right of all Americans to religious freedom and all the First Amendment Rights.      

The Catholic institutions filed the lawsuit due to new ObamaCare regulations that force religious institutions to pay for coverage of abortion drugs, regardless of the employers’ religious and moral objections.  The new regulation mandating that all religious employers must provide health care insurance plans that must include sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives (including those that can induce abortions) is an attack on the Constitution itself and the constitutional rights of all Americans. 

How can the liberal media ignore twelve different lawsuits being filed in federal courts that each charge the Administration with violating the Church’s First Amendment right?  The silence is deafening and seems to be deliberate.    

The liberal national media continues to show their bias by their lack of coverage of this historical event.

Updated/corrected: A typo in an earlier version referred to "regulations that force religious institutions to pay for coverage of anti-abortion drugs." That should be "of abortion drugs" and has been corrected.