The 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis decision from the Supreme Court last week sent the liberal news media into an orgy of overwrought rhetoric — even by their standards.

Vox characterized Justice Neil Gorsuch’s 26-page opinion on 303 Creative as " venting outrage ." The Daily Beast claimed that the decision is "incoherent" despite admitting that Gorsuch’s opinion is "definitely right on the technical details of the law ." People summed up Friday’s decision as one which "immediately opens the door for further discrimination against the queer and trans community." MSNBC offered the following headline : "Supreme Court rules for website designer who doesn’t want to serve same-sex couples."

Reactions like these are depressing. They are at once deeply misleading and reinforce the absurd claim that America is in the grip of a regressive cultural backlash. They aren't, however, surprising. 303 Creative was nothing short of a slam-dunk decision in terms of both the Constitution and common sense. In turn, liberal outlets unable to accept that reality have no other option but to obfuscate. Their business model is predicated upon confirming the biases of the audience and feeding their outrage addiction. The facts be damned.

The MSNBC headline best reflects what progressives want to believe about 303 Creative: that the decision will allow businesses to turn away specific customers as opposed to specific customer requests that violate the conscience of the service provider.

But 303 Creative does not give any business the right to turn away gay people. It explicitly states otherwise. Instead, it gives businesses the right to refuse offering specific services that run afoul of their deeply held convictions. The liberal media wants its audience to believe that the decision was somehow a reversal of Title II of the Civil Rights Act, which restricts businesses from denying service to particular groups, such as when Woolworth’s lunch counter denied service to four black college students in 1960. But 303 Creative only protects businesses from being forced to make expressions that they disagree with.

To help their audience understand the implication of the decision, outlets like MSNBC need only to offer a simple reverse scenario.

Imagine that a web-design business were run by a trans or nonbinary individual who strongly disagrees with the traditional notion that gender is binary and inextricably related to one’s biology, and that it is even harmful. Now, let’s imagine that a young, married Christian couple were to approach this business and request a website for a "gender reveal" party with the following text on the banner: "Boy or girl? It can only be one! Come celebrate the news of our daughter or son!"

According to 303 Creative, the web designer in this case would have the right to deny performing this service without the threat of legal action. This is not only constitutional but utterly rational. Of course, the trans or nonbinary web designer shouldn’t be forced to make an utterance at odds with their conscience. Who wants to live in a country that forces people to say things they don’t believe?

It would have been easy for media outlets to explain this to their audiences. But they aren’t interested in telling hard truths, since they, and perhaps they alone, benefit from the atmosphere of perpetual hysteria that currently defines the American Left.

Peter Laffin is a contributor at the Washington Examiner and the founder of Crush the College Essay. His work has also appeared in RealClearPolitics, the Catholic Thing, the National Catholic Register, and the American Spectator.