Religious liberty requires a robust defense of the freedom of conscience. And freedom of conscience is expressed in an individual’s right to either accept or reject various beliefs, ideas or behaviors as their own conscience dictates. In other words, an essential and foundational component of freedom of conscience is the right to be discriminating. For a society to espouse a commitment to protect individual freedom, that society must allow for individuals to choose to discriminate against ideals and behaviors they find objectionable, so long as they don’t prevent another individual from also engaging their liberty of conscience.

This week the mainstream media ran stories criticizing Attorney General Jeff Sessions for delivering a speech to a “hate group.” NBC News’ headline read, “Jeff Sessions Tells ‘Hate Group’ DOJ Will Issue Religious Freedom Guidance,” and ABC News’ even more biased headline read, “Jeff Sessions addresses ‘anti-LGBT hate group,’ but DOJ won’t release his remarks.” So what was this dastardly “hate group” Sessions addressed? It was the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a civil liberties organization dedicated to defending Americans’ right to religious freedom. Hardly a “hate group.”

How did the Leftmedia come to libeling a long-respected civil liberty organization? The answer: the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). That once-respected organization has taken a hard-left turn in recent years and has essentially designated every politically conservative organization a “hate group.” The SPLC has become so politically biased that to reference it as a credible and authoritative source is akin to referencing Joseph Goebbels as an authority on the accuracy of Allied news stories.

As for the claim by ABC News that the DOJ refused to release Sessions’ remarks, the full transcript of his speech was published by The Federalist. And it’s a good speech, well worth the read. Once again, this serves as yet another example of gross bias in the Leftmedia, as well as its sad state of journalistic integrity.