The culture war refocuses on gay marriage a decade later
June this year will mark a decade since the Supreme Court codified gay marriage across the nation — a ruling right-wing media said was worth “weep[ing]” over, and lamented at the time as “the greatest, most historic, landmark blunder in the history of the United States Supreme Court.”
In the interim, right-wing media focused their attacks on transgender people, materializing into a yearslong culture war and now a presidential administration with an unabashed anti-trans agenda.
Confident that they have put transgender people on their back foot, right-wing media are mobilizing against gay marriage once again, a fight for which they have years of practice.
Related Knowledge Center: Information integrity
In an increasingly fractured media landscape, truth has been a casualty in the public discussion. Coverage has been warped by the business needs of struggling news organizations, and a significant segment of the public relies on bad-faith outlets that are little more than propagandists. While fact-checking has become routine, some organizations are exploring other ways to combat the trends. And misinformation spewed by AI-driven chatbots has become more of a feature than simply a bug.
Fact-checking and its detractors
Related Knowledge Center: Democracy and politics
News organizations are scrambling to find a coverage approach that adequately informs the American public about the country’s slide from democracy to authoritarian rule.