The Heritage Foundation and its vice president, Roger Severino, are praising the Supreme Court’s decision last week favoring the First Amendment rights of a Colorado business owner and designer over the Equal Protection rights of the LGBTQ community as a “victory for tolerance.”
Heritage, the once-vaunted right-wing think tank that has melded into pro-Trump MAGA right-wing extremism, just weeks ago attacked President Joe Biden and his historic White House Pride Month celebration, declaring: “The ‘Pride Flag’ does not represent anything good and it certainly does not represent America. It should have never disgraced the South Portico of the White House.”
Now it is using the Supreme Court decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis to continue its anti-LGBTQ attack.
“The LGBT Left says they just want to live like everybody else. That’s a lie,” Heritage on Monday wrote. “If you don’t compromise your beliefs and kowtow to their demands, they’ll make an enemy out of you. The 303 Creative decision rejects their efforts to make Americans pledge allegiance to their flag.”
Roger Severino is a former Trump administration official who served as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights. He used that position as a sword to attack the LGBTQ community.
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In 2019, Severino was the Trump administration’s top official behind a new regulation offering special religious rights to medical providers while harming LGBT people.
“Patients want doctors who match their values,” he said, defending the policy, which would allow medical professionals to deny service to anyone for reasons of conscience.
In 2020, Severino, as The New York Times reported, “finalized a regulation that will erase protections for transgender patients against discrimination by doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies, a move announced on the four-year anniversary of the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando and in the middle of Pride Month.”
In an interview with Newsmax posted on Monday, Severino called the Supreme Court ruling in 303 Creative v. Elenis, “a tremendous victory for free speech and tolerance and pluralism.”
“The Supreme Court opinion focused a lot on West Virginia v. Barnette, which is a case from World War II,” Severino said. “That said Americans cannot be forced to pledge allegiance to the flag. Now this opinion elaborated and essentially saying, you can’t force Americans to pledge allegiance to the pride flag as well.”
There is no indication anyone of any authority has ever tried to “force Americans to pledge allegiance to the pride flag.”
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