On Monday and Tuesday, ABC’s Good Morning America and World News Tonight covered the Supreme Court case involving a Christian businesswoman being taken to court to force her to create a website for a gay wedding with heavy doses of fear-mongering and scorn. Over three segments, senior national correspondent Terry Moran insisted support for religious liberty would turn back the clock to slavery and segregation because “public accomodation[s]” “were thought to have been settled long ago.”
Moran also mangled the facts about Lorie Smith, the Colorado-based owner of 303 Creative, by falsely claiming she “does not want to do business with gay people” when, in reality, she would do business with them so long as it doesn’t run counter to her Christian faith.
Chief national correspondent Cecilia Vega set the scene on Monday’s Good Morning America (GMA): “At issue in this case is whether a Colorado graphic designer can use her faith as a reason for refusing to do business with a same-sex couple.”
Moran said from the Court that while Smith’s “asking the Supreme Court to strike down Colorado’s anti-discrimination act which would require her to design websites” for “LGBTQ couples, or face fines,” Colorado (and Moran) have argued the “law simply requires businesses that serve the general public to serve everyone.”
“That's been a cornerstone of civil rights law for decades and the implications of this case are potentially huge, not just limited to the LGBTQ community,” Moran whined.
Channeling what liberal justices would do in oral arguments (such as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson referring to It’s a Wonderful Life as racist), Moran had a hare-brained hypothetical of his own:
What if — what if a photographer refuses to take pictures of immigrant school children because he opposes immigration in this country? That is the kind of question that long thought settled, but perhaps no more.
Earth to Moran: Immigration isn’t on the same plane of sanctity with marriage.
Fast-forward to Monday’s World News Tonight and anchor David Muir aided Moran in suggesting a personal belief in marriage between a man and woman is dangerous: “[T]o the Supreme Court tonight, hearing oral arguments in a case that at its core asks this question: Can some businesses turn away same-sex couples as customers?”
Moran used the liberal justices to bolster his case that not forcing a marriage-based private business to engage in a situation they’re uncomfortable with was akin to reinstituting slavery and discrimination against African-Americans (click “expand”):
MORAN: But the liberals pushed back hard, Justice Sonia Sotomayor grilling Smith's lawyer about other issues where people might have religious or ideological objections.
JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR: You're saying, I don't want to serve a particular person, a disabled person, black and white couple, a disabled couple, a — a gay couple. You're basing it not only the nature of the message, you're basing it on who you're serving.
MORAN: And Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who, like Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court's other black justice, is married to a white person, said history shows religion has been used to justify discrimination.
JUSTICE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON: Historically, opposition to interracial marriages and integration in many instances was on religious grounds.
Moran closed with a flourish, comparing LGBTQ groups hunting down and publicly shaming Christ-following Americans to the brave Americans who engaged in sit-ins at lunch counters in the 1950s and 1960s:
Many of the questions raised in court today were thought to have been settled long ago during the civil rights era by public accommodation laws which were passed after lunch counter sit-ins and other protests against business and those laws required businesses that served the general public to serve all equally. This.. case could change that and more.
Tuesday’s GMA featured one final Moran scolding and said lie about Smith opposing any interaction with gays.
Again invoking the liberal justice, Moran boasted Sotomayor’s wackadoo claim “that, if the Court rules for Smith, it would be the first time in history that a commercial business open to the public would be able to deny service on the basis of race or sex or sexual orientation, the first time since the Supreme Court established those laws back in the 1960s during the civil rights era.”
ABC’s fear-mongering and criminalizing of religious liberty via cockamamie analogies was made possible thanks to advertisers such as Discover (on December 5’s GMA), Neutrogena (on December 6’s GMA), and Oral-B (on December 5’s World News Tonight). Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant transcripts, click here (for December 5’s GMA), here (for December 5’s World News Tonight), and here (for December 6’s GMA).
