For reasons that aren’t important here, Daily Post editor Bill Hudson recently mentioned a column I wrote last March: ‘Atheists at a Prayer Vigil’.
Bill’s reference motivated me to follow-up on it.
That column was about a United States Supreme Court ruling concerning a lawsuit brought by a group of atheists who were offended that they heard prayers at a prayer meeting. My latest research revealed two things. First, nothing has changed with the legal status of the case since the Supreme Court ruled. Second, and the subject of this column, it illustrated how the media distorts reality.
As I explained in my previous column, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the First Amendment claims of the atheists:
The result of the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the [City of Ocala’s] appeal is that the 11th Circuit’s order vacating the District Court judge’s original ruling (in favor of the atheists) , and telling him to reconsider it, still stands. So now the suit goes back to the District Court for reconsideration.
For any non-lawyers out there, that means that, by the Supreme Court refusing to hear the case, the opinion of the lower appeals court (the 11th Circuit) — which ruled against the atheists — was approved by the Supreme Court. The district court judge who originally sided with the atheists must now reconsider that decision (which I haven’t found that he has done yet).
So how did some in the media spin the Supreme Court’s ruling? Here are a few examples:
Supreme Court allows atheists’ lawsuit against Florida city over prayer vigil to continue
While semantically accurate, that headline utterly disregards that the Supreme Court said the atheists’ First Amendment violation claim was not supported by the Constitution. Sure, their suit can proceed — but the Supreme Court indicated there is no basis for it.
Not to be outdone by CNN, Fox News ran this headline:
Supreme Court denies petition from Florida city to toss atheists’ First Amendment suit over prayer vigil
Again, while not untrue, the headline ignores the actual legal impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of the City.
US Supreme Court rebuffs Florida city’s challenge to atheist lawsuit
Yes, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case — and doing so had the effect of blowing the atheists case out of the water. But you’d never know that from the headline.
In prior rulings about the First Amendment — in 2019, and again in 2022 — the Supreme Court pulled the rug out from under the atheists’ legal argument in this latest case. Based on those previous rulings, the Supreme Court said the original Florida District Court judge who ruled in favor of the atheists, and against the City, was wrong — and left in place the lower appeals court decision against the atheists.
That 2019 case (which I wrote about here) said that merely being an “offended observer” doesn’t give someone a basis to bring a lawsuit claiming their First Amendment rights have been violated.
By affirming the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion (which threw out the District Court opinion favoring the atheists) the Supreme Court reiterated the 2019 and 2022, decisions. The fact the atheists were “offended” doesn’t mean they can sue the City of Ocala.
In light of what the Supreme Court actually ruled, how did they “rebuff” the city’s “challenge to the atheist lawsuit”, as Reuters would have you believe? Knowing what the Supreme Court actually held, how accurate are the headlines from CNN and Fox?
CNBC had a ‘sort of correct’ headline…
Atheists avoid — for now — Supreme Court review of lawsuit on Florida shooting prayer vigil
Yes… true…. but the headline fails to convey the fact that the effect of the ruling is that there is no legal basis for the atheists to win that lawsuit.
Even some headline writers in the religious media didn’t get it totally accurate. This from The Tablet — a religious news outlet.
Supreme Court Lets Lawsuit Continue Against Florida City’s Prayer Vigil
Yep… that’s accurate… but the effect of this ruling is that the chances that lawsuit will succeed are circling the drain.
These headlines are aimed at low-information readers, who either won’t take the time to learn the facts, or will be so influenced by the headline that they won’t understand facts which are contrary to what is implied by the headline. The headline writers rely on too many of their readers being intellectually lazy.
Mass media headlines such as those above are meant to suggest an illusion to its potential audience. Not unlike the tout on the sidewalk in front of a Bourbon Street strip club!
So what would an accurate headline be? How about, Supreme Court says you can’t get paid for being offended!
Gary Beatty lives between Florida and Pagosa Springs. He retired after 30 years as a prosecutor for the State of Florida, has a doctorate in law, is Board Certified in Criminal Trial law by the Florida Supreme Court, and is now a law professor.