The Supreme Court ended its term with several major decisions favorable to conservatives, and tax-funded public broadcasting, which is ostensibly objective, failed to hide its displeasure in its Friday evening analysis, including its take on the Court’s 6-3 decision in the 303 CREATIVE LLC case, that a website designer in Colorado had a First Amendment right to refuse to design wedding websites for gay couples.
Reporter John Yang didn’t host a balanced panel to offer both sides of the matter, but found a guest journalist to advocate solely for the losing left-wing side, Kate Sosin, the LGBTQ reporter for the leftist website The 19th, a frequent source of NewsHour guests. She described the conservative group in this case, the Alliance Defending Freedom, as a "hate group."
PBS has “evolved” from “LGBT” to “LGBTQ-plus” since May. How long before LGBTQIA2S-plus is the standard? Sosin goes with the "they" pronoun.
Yang: Kate Sosin is a reporter at The 19th News, where they cover LGBTQ-plus issues. Kate, from your perspective, what's the significance of today's ruling?
Sosin, The 19th News: Today's ruling is very significant, in that LGBTQ-plus people are going to wake up tomorrow in a country where their government decided that it is protected speech, First Amendment, to turn them away from businesses because of who they are. And that is a statement that we have not seen before. It's that we're changing precedent here. That said, this ruling is very specific to Lorie Smith and her case, and it does not green-light blanket discrimination against LGBTQ+ people immediately.
Yang, who is gay, voiced his own ideologically distorted suspicions of bigoted businesses looking for ways to disapprove of gay life:
Yang: You're right. It does narrow this to services that express creative content, expression, but could businesses try to frame their businesses in those terms?
Sosin: That's what a lot of LGBTQ+ legal experts and advocates are expressing concern over. This really remains to be seen. The way that we like to describe it as, it creates a new opening, so it signals that the Supreme Court and lower courts will now entertain this question of whether or not your religious freedom gives you the right to turn away an LGBTQ+ person because of your beliefs….
While Sosin was less doomsaying than many activists, noting polls that showed strong support by Americans for “LGBTQ” people, Yang tried to frame the free-speech decision in more threatening, religious terms.
Yang pulled up an interview PBS had once conducted with the web designer at the heart of the case and noted “[Smith] told us that she thought the fight for her First Amendment rights was not just for Christian conservatives, but for all artists.” Then Yang emphasized: "That said, she had a lot of support, legal support, from some Christian conservative groups."
That gave Sosin her opening to attack the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian legal advocacy group that took the case, as a “hate group.”
Sosin: ….We have seen them take a number of anti-LGBTQ+ cases to the Supreme Court and to other courts. And this is an organization that advocates that LGBTQ+ people are similar to pedophiles. And it also is an organization that has had past ties to Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who had five paid speaking engagements for ADF. So the landscape here is changing for us. What we're seeing is a mainstreaming of an organization that we used to consider an extremist organization that's been labeled a hate group by advocacy groups, coming in and advocating something that we have now made the law of the land, essentially.
Yang didn’t challenge Sosin’s vituperative description of ADF.
This ideologically slanted segment was brought to you in part by BNSF Railway.
A transcript is below, click “Expand” to read:
PBS NewsHour
June 30, 2023
7:12:42 p.m. (ET)
Geoff Bennett: John Yang has more now on the court's ruling in favor of a Web designer who refuses to create Web sites for same-sex couples because of her religious beliefs.
John Yang: Geoff, the justice has sided with her on a 6-3 ideological split, saying that forcing her to make Web sites for something she doesn't believe in would violate her First Amendment rights.
Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said: "The First Amendment protects an individual's right to speak his mind, regardless of whether the government considers his speech sensible and well-intentioned, or deeply misguided and likely to cause anguish or incalculable grief."
Today, the Colorado attorney general said the decision gives businesses free rein to discriminate.
Phil Weiser (D), Colorado Attorney General: This sweeping opinion promises to destabilize the public marketplace, enabling and encouraging all types of businesses, not just those who make Web sites, to have a First Amendment right to refuse customers because of who they are.
John Yang: President Biden said the decision was disappointing. Kate Sosin is a reporter at The 19th News, where they cover LGBTQ+ issues. Kate, from your perspective, what's the significance of today's ruling?
Kate Sosin, The 19th News: Today's ruling is very significant, in that LGBTQ+ people are going to wake up tomorrow in a country where their government decided that it is a protected speech, First Amendment, to turn them away from businesses because of who they are.
And that is a statement that we have not seen before. It's that we're changing precedent here. That said, this ruling is very specific to Lorie Smith and her case, and it does not green-light blanket discrimination against LGBTQ+ people immediately.
John Yang: You're right. It does narrow this to services that express creative content, expression, but could businesses try to frame their businesses in those terms?
Kate Sosin: That's what a lot of LGBTQ+ legal experts and advocates are expressing concern over.
This really remains to be seen. The way that we like to describe it as, it creates a new opening, so it signals that the Supreme Court and lower courts will now entertain this question of whether or not your religious freedom gives you the right to turn away an LGBTQ+ person because of your beliefs.
Theoretically, based on this decision alone, it shouldn't. However, we have never had a decision where we say that your religious beliefs allow you to turn away LGBTQ+ people. And so cracking that door open, a lot of people feel like, could be the start of an avalanche.
John Yang: What's the current climate for LGBTQ+ rights?
Kate Sosin: There are two answers to that question.
The first is the political climate, which I think a lot of us know has been really hard for LGBTQ+ people. We have seen more than 520 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced into state legislatures this year. And as presidential campaigns ramp up, we know that candidates are campaigning on anti-LGBTQ+ stances. That said, the country itself, the electorate, is moving toward acceptance of LGBTQ+ people. GLAAD released a study at the beginning of June that found that 91 percent of Americans who are non-LGBTQ+ support the idea that LGBTQ+ people should not be discriminated against. So there's this huge disparity between the political climate that we're living in and the lives of everyday people.
John Yang: Before the oral arguments, we talked to Lorie Smith, the Web designer who's at the center of this case. She told us that she thought the fight for her First Amendment rights was not just for Christian conservatives, but for all artists.
Lorie Smith, Owner and Founder, 303 Creative: And that right is guaranteed to artists like myself, but also to artists like the LGBT Web site designer and graphic designer, who should not be forced by the government to create messages opposing same-sex marriage. That right to speak freely is guaranteed to all of us.
John Yang: That said, she had a lot of support, legal support, from some Christian conservative groups.
Kate Sosin: She did. And it's important to note that the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is the nation's most powerful anti-LGBTQ+ legal organization, took her case. We have seen them take a number of anti-LGBTQ+ cases to the Supreme Court and to other courts.
And this is an organization that advocates that LGBTQ+ people are similar to pedophiles. And it also is an organization that has had past ties to Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who had five paid speaking engagements for ADF.
So the landscape here is changing for us. What we're seeing is a mainstreaming of an organization that we used to consider an extremist organization that's been labeled a hate group by advocacy groups coming in and advocating something that we have now made the law of the land essentially.
John Yang: A lot of people may be thinking that this was already settled by the Supreme Court, because, five years ago, there was a case from Colorado as well sort of dealing with some of these issues.
What was different between these two cases? And what happened in that other case?
Kate Sosin: Yes, that case was similar, in that you had a baker who said that his custom cakes amounted to art and he did not want to make a custom cake for a same-sex couple who wanted to get married.
The difference was that, five years ago, the Supreme Court looked at that case and said, we don't fully want to rule on this issue of religious freedom versus LGBTQ+ protections. And instead of really engaging with that issue, they ruled very narrowly for the baker and said that the Colorado Civil Rights Division displayed animus toward him because of his religious beliefs.
So it left open the door, at least the possibility, that future lawsuits like this could come. However, it didn't — it didn't actually undo anti-discrimination protections in the same way. So, the court declined to really engage with that issue until today.
