Justice Clarence Thomas stated again his antipathy for the free press in his dissent to denial of certiorari in Coal Ridge Ministries Media v. Southern Poverty Law Center. He wrote, “New York Times and its progeny have allowed media organizations and interest groups ‘to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity.'” (The Guardian, June 29, 2011, by Lawrence H. Tribe and Dennis Aftrergut)
An editorial in the Las Vegas Sun, July 3, 2022, specifies the ways conservative Christians have turned against the First Amendment, naming Republican representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado as representative of those speaking out. “…if we, the American people, don’t find a way to get violent religious extremists like Boebert out of office in November,” the editorial reads, ” the First Amendment will remain at risk of being junk because Boebert and her ilk want to crush any beliefs contrary to their own. They want to reduce the First Amendment to symbolic language with no purpose, no teeth, no enforcement tossed aside as easily as a bag of trash.”