Filling in for Bob Schieffer as moderator of Face the Nation, CBS’s Norah O’Donnell conducted two vastly different interviews regarding multiple religious freedom laws being debate across the nation, by treating Sarah Warbelow of the Human Rights Campaign to a softball interview but repeatedly pressing former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) over his support for such laws.
While O’Donnell never appeared combative while questioning Santorum, she made it known where she sided on the religious freedom debate when speaking to Warbelow. She even gushed that “there's going to be some tech titans that are coming out Monday in order to urge laws that prevent discrimination against gay and lesbians including Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, and Eric Schmidt and Larry Page of Google.”
In contrast, during her interview with Santorum, the CBS This Morning host pressed her guest over whether or not “you were a wedding planner and you did not want to be involved in planning a same-sex marriage, this language would not allow you to opt out.”
During the discussion, O’Donnell repeatedly asked Santorum to defend his support for allowing businesses to refuse to perform wedding-related services to same-sex couples based on their religious beliefs:
Do you think that what’s behind many of these religious freedom laws is that gay marriage is now legal in more than 30 states and so this is really about trying to protect business owners who don't want to be involved in same-sex weddings?
Despite O’Donnell repeatedly pressing Santorum for his support of religious freedom bills, she did not show the same enthusiasm when interviewing Sarah Warbelow. After her guest suggested that changes to Indiana’s religious freedom law could allow for discrimination against African Americans and Asian Americans, O’Donnell failed to push back and instead eagerly touted the celebrity support for non-discrimination legislation.
The CBS host continued to toss easy questions at Warbelow and asked “[s]o we saw Indiana change its law, Arkansas as well. Where is the next fight?” After allowing her guest to give a long response promoting the Human Rights Campaign’s advocacy, O’Donnell concluded by wondering “how many states do those [non-discrimination] laws currently not exist?
See relevant transcript below.
CBS’s Face the Nation
April 5, 2015
NORAH O’DONNELL: Earlier I sat down with former Republican Senator and 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum. Senator good to have you here. Let’s talk about the debate that's been going on in Indiana and Arkansas. First Indiana. Was it right for Governor Pence to change the language in the bill?
RICK SANTORUM: I was hoping he wouldn't. I think that the language that he had is better language. This is acceptable language. I voted for this language. I certainly can't say that it's a bad bill. It's a good bill. But it doesn't do a lot of the things, it doesn't really open the debate up on some of the more current issues. I think that the current language that the federal law is and now Indiana is has been held pretty much to have a pretty limited view of what religious liberty, religious freedom is in the workplace. And I think we need to look at as religious liberty is now being pushed harder to provide more religious protections and that bill doesn't do that.
O’DONNELL: What now do think with this new language changes?
SANTORUM: I think what we need to look is, we – aren’t for discrimination against any person. No business should discriminate against because of who you are. But it should have the ability to say we’re not going to participate in certain activities that we disagree with from a religious point of view. I don't think frank y either bill does that but the second one, the one that Governor Pence backed away from moves toward that.
O’DONNELL: In fact, here is what the language says. It makes clear that the law does not allow businesses to refuse “services, facilities, use of public accommodations, goods, employment or housing to any member or members of the general public based on race, color, religion, ancestry, age, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or United States military service.” With this language if you were a wedding planner and you did not want to be involved in planning a same-sex marriage, this language would not allow you to opt out.
SANTORUM: I'm not a legal scholar but I can tell you the way that previous laws have been ruled that they have not provided any type of protection for that. And I think that’s—
O’DONNELL: And you think that wedding planners who don't want to plan a same-sex marriage should be allowed to –
SANTORUM: It’s a matter of accommodation. Tolerance is a two-way street. If you are a print shop and you are a gay man, should you be forced to print “God hates fags” for the Westboro Baptist Church because they hold those signs up? Should you be forced to—should the government? And this is really the case here. Should the government force you to do that? And that's what these cases are all about. Because this is about the government coming in saying no we're going to make you do this. And this is where I think we just need some space to say, let's have some tolerance, be a two-way street.
O’DONNELL: Do you think that what’s behind many of these religious freedom laws is that gay marriage is now legal in more than 30 states and so this is really about trying to protect business owners who don't want to be involved in same-sex weddings?
SANTORUM: I think we’ve seen, obviously attitudes in this country change. And when those attitudes change we run into a whole bunch of new issues. And so the question is how do we deal with that and respecting people on both sides of the issues? And I think that's where you have to differentiate between discrimination against the person because of who they are and discrimination -- unwillingness to participate in actions because they're inconsistent with your religious beliefs.
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O’DONNELL: For more on religious freedom and laws in this country and the backlash that forced changes in the Arkansas and Indiana laws we are joined by Sarah Warbelow, the legal director for the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest gay and lesbian civil rights organization. Sarah, good to have you here. You just heard from Senator Santorum who said this law would have protected a gay business owner from having to do work on something that he finds offensive or discriminatory. Would that have been an important protection to have?
SARAH WARBELOW: On the contrary. The legislation would have none no such thing. It explicitly allowed individuals to use their religious beliefs to underline other types of laws that provide protections. Not only against gay, lesbian, bisexual transgender people but against other religious minorities and in some instances against African Americans and Asian Americans as well.
O’DONNELL: So we saw Indiana change its law, Arkansas as well. Where is the next fight?
WARBELOW: Well, there are over 100 bills that have been introduced in the state legislatures this year attempting to target the LGBT community, in particular, we're going to be turning our vision to states like Texas and South Carolina that have bills similar to what we saw in Indiana already in the works.
O’DONNELL: I understand there's going to be some tech titans that are coming out Monday in order to urge laws that prevent discrimination against gay and lesbians including Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, and Eric Schmidt Larry Page of Google. Why do you think this is all happening now?
WARBELOW: The tech industry is joining many other important American forces in the business community from Apple to Walmart to Angie's List who are really looking at their employees' whole lives. These companies already offer nondiscrimination protections in employment for their employees but they want to make sure that outside of the workforce their employees are not going to be turned away when they go to a restaurant, when they go grocery shopping, when they go to purchase a home or rent an apartment. Non-discrimination protections are critical to every area of their employees' lives.
O’DONNELL: And in how many states do those laws currently not exist?
WARBELOW: So currently only 21 states and the District of Columbia have laws that protect on basis of sexual orientation, and 17 of those on the basis of gender identity so there's a lot of work to be done.
