The Roe v. Wade related events of the past three or four days have created a very obvious case study that can be stashed into that ongoing “mirror image” case file here at GetReligion.
Start here. Let’s say that, during the days of the Donald Trump White House, something important happened related to LGBTQ rights — something like a U.S. Supreme Court decision that delivered a major victory to the trans community. At that point, some wild people on the far cultural right published the home addresses of the justices that backed the decision and, maybe, even any hospital that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg might be visiting for cancer treatments.
Another group, let’s call it “Bork Sent Us,” announces plans for protests at Episcopal Church parishes because of that denomination’s outspoken support for LGBTQ causes. Some protestors promise to invade sanctuaries and violate the bread and wine used in the Holy Eucharist. Along the way, what if someone firebombed a Planned Parenthood facility?
Obviously, Trump’s press secretary would be asked to condemn this madness, including violations of a federal law against intimidating protests at the homes of judges.
Let’s set that aside for a moment. I want to ask a “mirror image” journalism question: Would this be treated as a major news story in elite media on both sides of our divided nation and, thus, divided media? Would this, at the very least, deserve a story or two that made it into the basic Associated Press summary of the major news stories of the weekend?
Let me say that these events would have deserved waves of digital ink, with good cause.
This brings us, of course, to the leaked copy of a draft of a majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito that points to a potential 5-3-1 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Twitter users may know many of the details of the anger this has unleashed in mass media and among Sexual Revolution clergy, both secular and sacred. There has been some coverage, including (#DUH) at Fox News. A sample on the church angle:
The White House on Sunday defended people's "fundamental right to protest" but warned against efforts to "intimidate" others during pro-abortion protests planned at Catholic churches across the country.
Multiple activist groups are planning protests defending abortion rights outside Catholic churches on Mother's Day and the following Sunday after a draft opinion from the Supreme Court threatened to overturn Roe v. Wade.
A group known as "Ruth Sent Us," which has a TikTok account with more than 20,000 followers, posted a video of a group of women wearing costumes inspired by Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaids Tale" walking into what appeared to be the front of a Catholic Church during Mass. …
The "Ruth Sent Us" activist group on Friday threatened that they would be "burning the Eucharist," to show their "disgust for the abuse Catholic Churches have condoned for centuries."
The larger issue, of course, was the doxxing of the justices poised to overturn Roe. The Washington Post offered a relatively nuanced feature about the neighbor of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and we will get to that momentarily. Oh, and Justice Alito and his family have been moved to a safe location. Big headlines at this point? Nope.
But it’s important to glance at this Reason magazine report about the legal status of the doxxing. We will get to that firebomb angle, as well. But first, click here: “Federal Statute Bans Picketing Judges' Residences ‘With The Intent of Influencing [the] Judge’.”
If readers want a political-media summary report on the implications of this, they will need to turn to The Hill and an opinion piece — this isn’t a news story, after all — by Jonathan Turley: “From court packing to leaking to doxing: White House yields to a national rage addiction.” Here is the top of that:
Nearly 70 years ago, a little-known lawyer named Joseph Welch famously confronted Sen. Joseph McCarthy (D-Wis.) in defense of a young man hounded over alleged un-American views. Welch told McCarthy that “I think I have never really gauged … your recklessness” before asking: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
It was a defining moment in American politics as Welch called out a politician who had abandoned any semblance of principle in the pursuit of political advantage. This week, the same scene played out in the White House with one striking difference: This was no Joseph Welch to be found.
After someone in the Supreme Court leaked a draft opinion in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a virtual flash-mob formed around the court and its members demanding retributive justice. This included renewed calls for court “packing,” as well as the potential targeting of individual justices at their homes. Like the leaking of the opinion itself, the doxing of justices and their families is being treated as fair game in our age of rage.
Would that deserve an item in the AP digest after the weekend in question? Apparently not.
What would show up in a Google News search for some relevant terms linked to the doxxed justices angle? That would look something like this file. It’s safe to say that MAGA folks outside the home of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and others would have received JUST. A. BIT. more coverage than this. The threat of these actions might have even made it into the routines of late-night comics.
Like I said, the Washington Post did produce a story about the outraged neighbor who is at the center of the illegal protests outside the Kavanaugh home. Unless I missed it, this story does not include a reference to the federal law that appears to be relevant in this case (Oh well. Whatever. Nevermind). Here is the overture:
Lacie Wooten-Holway walked through Chevy Chase on Wednesday night, pausing to stick fliers on her fence, a tree and utility boxes. She was advertising an abortion rights protest here, in her neighborhood, in front of the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.
A passing couple paused, reading her sign: “HONK 4 REPRO Rights and Bodily Autonomy.”
“Good!” the woman said.
“That I don’t agree with,” the man interjected. “I think you vote, and you expand the court. You don’t go to a guy’s house.”
She had heard the argument before and responded: “I organize peaceful candlelit vigils in front of his house. … We’re about to get doomsday, so I’m not going to be civil to that man at all.”
There is some tension in this story, but that’s about it. I’m thinking that a MAGA neighbor protesting at the Ginsburg hospital might have received a bit more acid.
The most important paragraph in the story? I think it’s this one:
Most of the neighbors interviewed by The Washington Post declined to provide their full names, including this couple who were nervous about how speaking publicly about politics would affect their jobs.
As for the church protests — this weekend or in the future — that appears to be a local story kind of thing.
To their credit, editors at The New York Times did publish a story about the arson attack at the office of the Wisconsin Family Action ministry/activist group. For contrast, here is a local report on that arson attack.
But let’s look at a bite of the Times report:
“There’s nothing we have done to warrant this. We ought to be able to take different sides on issues without fearing for our lives,” said Julaine Appling, the president of Wisconsin Family Action. “Had anybody been in the office, they would have, at a minimum, been hurt.” …
Ms. Appling said that her office was the main target of the attack. Two windows had been smashed, and water that was used to put out the fire had caused more damage. Ms. Appling said the graffiti was particularly disturbing. “As I drove up to the office and I saw that, my immediate reaction was surprise at how overt the threat was,” she said. The graffiti included an anarchist symbol and the numbers 1312, a shorthand for an anti-police slur.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin also denounced the violence in a statement. “Our work to protect continued access to reproductive care is rooted in love,” the group’s president, Tanya Atkinson, said. “We condemn all forms of violence and hatred within our communities.”
Meanwhile, it appears that the leaders of the biggest newspaper chain in Middle America — at least those at the flagship USA Today — believe that the most important threat at the moment is (#DUH) right-wingers attempting to take out abortion facilities. See: “Abortion clinics are secured like fortresses. Advocates fear Roe ruling could spur new attacks.”
That is — here me say this — a valid angle for coverage. There are quite a few people who have been kicked out of the mainstream pro-life movement, especially organizations linked to religious groups, who have been known to do things like that. That’s a real story.
But what about the actual announcements about demonstrations that included threats to disrupt Mass in Catholic parishes? What about that whole doxxing story? How does that fit into the USA Today summary of the weekend’s most important news? Click here to see that. It will not take very long.
That’s all for now.
Did I miss a few thousand stories about all of this? Please let me know if you see reports — good or bad — about the church protests and the legal angle of the doxxing protests at the homes of the bad justices at SCOTUS.
P.S. An event in a sort-of large media market.
FIRST IMAGE: Uncredited illustration at a GlobalSign.com report entitled “How To Avoid Getting Doxxed.”