Several days have passed since President Donald Trump announced that Judge Neil Gorsuch, a native of Boulder, Colo., was his new Supreme Court pick. By this time, the pros at Colorado’s largest paper have had plenty of time to blanket the area and soak up lots of biographical information (including all of that controversial religious stuff) about their suddenly famous native son.
Yet, what has the Denver Post done? Run article after article trashing the guy. There’s been no interviews with his neighbors, ski buddies and most notably, folks at his church, which is St. John’s Episcopal in downtown Boulder.
Come on. Churches are rich sources of information and surely there’s been time to talk with the priest and others at this church about a man who’s one of their ushers.
Yet, has there been any this rich human interest stuff? Nope. What we get is this:
A group of activists condemned President Donald Trump’s nomination of Colorado resident and U.S. 10th Circuit Court Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying his appointment would threaten hard-won constitutional protections for women, minorities and workers.
Gorsuch has sided with big business interests, supported rulings that give corporations rights that should be reserved for people, and has opposed women’s reproductive rights and the right to assisted suicide, they said at a demonstration on Thursday.
Gena Ozols, political director at NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado, said Gorsuch joined in the 10th Circuit’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case, which eliminated a requirement for nonsecular corporations to provide employees contraceptive protection as part of their health-insurance coverage.
That decision suggests he might support overturning Roe v. Wade, a landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, according to critics. The majority of Coloradans support abortion, and “Colorado cannot trust him,” Ozols said.
The rest of the piece did not quote a single person who favored the judge and instead leads with NARAL, not exactly the paragon of objectivity. Not only is this Kellerism –- a GetReligion-minted term for media that believe that only one side of a given story is worth reporting –- but it’s just sloppy. I know the Denver Post is short-staffed these days, but this is ridiculous.
Meanwhile, other outlets, such as CBN ( the first outlet to publicize the above -- tweeted -- photo of Trump praying with the Gorsuch and Antonin Scalia families), folks at Aleteia and America came up with faith angles about Gorsuch even though none of them are local.
You might remember that you read it here first that Gorsuch’s parish in Boulder certainly appears to be a liberal one; an angle developed by the Washington Post later in the day (with no attribution to GetReligion, unfortunately). But there was a lot left unreported, so how difficult would it have been for a Denver-based reporter to drive the 29 miles from Denver to Boulder to sniff around?
But I shouldn’t be surprised. The Denver Post, along with other media, haven’t exactly killed themselves to research the background of Scott Von Lanken, the Loveland, Colo., pastor gunned down Tuesday by radical Muslim shooter from Texas.
So I guess it's too much to expect that much ink will go toward Gorsuch. I hate to always have to wait for a national outlet to get in there, but let’s hope some of them have people casing Boulder, because it’s a sure bet the local people aren’t on it at all.
The only outlet that’s even checked into his family is the New York-based heavy.com, which ran some information on the judge Tuesday that I’ve seen nowhere else. But even they missed the church connection although I don’t see how. Religion News Service had Gorsuch’s church name posted days before the announcement. As did the Daily Mail, which researched Gorsuch's randy days at Georgetown Prep.
Once again, though, the Daily Mail should have checked its facts. America magazine is now saying the whole "Facism Forever" club that Gorsuch supposedly founded during his prep days was joke and everyone knew it. Leave it to the Jesuits to set the record straight.