Discrimination. Thats not all. Confederate battle flags long defended as symbols of heritage begin to come down. 150 years after the end of the civil war, the time has come. As South Carolina buries the victims of last weeks massacre. Amazing grace [applause] how sweet the sound we tackle the rapid shifts in law, politics and public opinion, tonight in a special edition of Washington Week, with pete williams, justice correspondent for nbc news, joan, Legal Affairs editor, alexis, White House Correspondent for real clear politics and michele norris, host and special correspondent for npr. Awardwinning reporting and analysis covering history as it happens, live from our nations capitol, this is Washington Week with gwen ifill. Corporate funding for Washington Week is provided by. We ask people to tell us something that happened in their past and something that might happen in their future. The good things were put on yellow magnets. The bad ones on blue. The results show the past was a pretty even mix of good and bad yet the future s almost all good things. Now that youve seen the results of this experiment, what does it mean to you . We all want to think about positive stuff. Realistically, there will be down times. Its great to think optimistically. But lets plan for whatever the future might bring. Additional Corporate Funding for Washington Week is provided by boeing. Additional funding is provided by newmans own foundation. Donating all profits from newmans own Food Products to charity. And nourishing the common good. The annenberg foundation. The corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you once again live from washington moderator gwen ifill. Good evening. We are seldom happier to broadcast live on friday nights than when we have real consequential news to report. This week, much of it occurred at the Supreme Court, which handed down two decisions that promise to change the course of the nation in different ways. Today it was a 54 decision to legalize marriage for samesex couples in all 50 states. The majority opinion written by Justice Anthony kennedy said among other things as some of the petitioners in this easy cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past debts. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they misunderstand marriage, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in lonliness excluded from one of civilizations oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The constitution grants them that right. In the end, this language seems so personal for Justice Kennedy. It was, gwen. Hes been building towards this moment for about 20 years, since 1996, when he first authored the courts big major gay rights ruling and then he did subsequent ones. And it was very personal. For 10 minutes he read excerpts talked about peoples identity, about marriage being such a keystone of society about the children of married couples, of samesex couples and how they needed their dignity. He used the word dignity about 10 times in his opinion. And words like dignity have echoed in all four that hes written for the court majority. And its surprising, because here he is a conservative man who would have thought he would have emerged this way . This has been where he has shown his voice most. There were four separate dissent on this. Each person who dissented wrote their own, one from chief Justice Roberts who wrote celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the constitution, he wrote. It had nothing to do with it. Pete . Well, this was the theme of all the dissenters, although they said it in a different way which is this decision is so important, it ought to be made by the voters and not by the courts. And in a case like this, by the way, really shows the fault lines on this Supreme Court because youre talking about a constitutional right. What the liberals said today Justice Kennedy said, that you cant deny liberty to samesex couples. That would violate the constitution. The conservatives said there is no such right. Youre reaching and finding rights in the constitution that dont exist. Hmm. One of the things that we all think is, you know, if we see this decision, its now a closed question. Right . In the states. How many states were affected and then what happens next . Well, immediately there were 13, 14 states that didnt allow it. Actually, alabama was right on the border, because alabama had been declared its marriage ban had been struck down but the state officials had said, no, were not going to give out licenses. So it was right on the border. Were wondering, will other states protest that way . So far we havent seen signs of it. The ruling doesnt take effect immediately but some states have already said that they will allow it. There were marriages already today. Exactly. In louisiana. People are moving ahead with this, for sure. So thats its the law of the land. But there are other questions now arising about other forms of discrimination against gays. Its curious, because people have wondered whether if it became the law of the land, if it would become much like abortion post roe v. Wade which was a legal right, but one very hard to exercise, depending on where you lived. The chief justice hinted at that in his dissent, the idea that, is this being forced on americans . Just as the wind is at their backs of gay people, to have this will there be a backlash . Will people close their minds towards gay people . But it doesnt seem like thats happening. It also seems like the nation was ready for it especially with Justice Kennedy himself. Who now seems to be a gay rights icon, as far as i can tell. For sure. For sure, given where hes been. But the thing is, there are just so many more questions. You know, parental rights vary state by state for adoption questions, custody questions. Remember, discrimination against gay men and lesbians is still essentially legal nationwide in other context. Yeah. You can get married today and fired tomorrow, basically is the way the law works now. Its interesting how the states are going to handle this, as a government matter, as what the state governments do. That seems pretty clear. Whether they like it or not theyre stuck with it. Even some of the attorney generals who fought this very hard, they say, okay, we give up, we lost. Where youre going to see some actions is businesses and religious groups. Some states are already saying, if youre a county clerk and have a religious objection, maybe you shouldnt be compelled to do this. There may be legal skirmishing about that as well. I wanted to go inside the courtroom. The way this works, we know there are these Big Decisions but we dont know when or how theyre going to come out. What was it like inside there . We knew they were going to be coming back on monday. There was some sentiment the Supreme Court would save this biggest decision until monday. But no. It starts to be announced by Justice Kennedy. Sitting in the front were several gay rights lawyers, who had been coming, just in case it was going to be announced. People start tearing up in that bar section as Justice Kennedy is reading from the bench. So it was quite a big moment there. You could feel it. And then when justice chief justice john roberts, for the first time in his 10 years on the bench, read his dissent out loud it was quite dramatic. Out on the steps, there was singing, dancing. The gay mens chorus was there, singing broadway tunes and another patriotic songs. But it was very unusual. Normally when you have Something Like this happen, you have a group of people there to see the decision and then after 10, 15 minutes, they go home. This crowd just kept rowing. They shut off one lane of traffic on the street between the Supreme Court and the u. S. Capitol. And people sort of surged up on to the courts plaza, which is normally hermetically sealed on big crowds. The police just sort of gave up. Tonight, even just before this broadcast, people were still out there, just standing around celebrating. Well, that wasnt the only big decision this week. That was just today. Yesterday, the court ruled 63 to strike down a grave threat to the president s signature legislative accomplishment, his Health Care Law. This time it was the chief justice himself who authored the majority opinion writing Congress Passed the Affordable Care act to improve Health Insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible, we must interpret the act in a way consistent with the former and avoids the latter. The chief justice ruled on congresss intent, not necessarily in those specific four words were at issue, pete. Right. The marriage case is about interpreting the constitution. This is the courts other line of work, which is reading federal statutes. The issue here is, who gets the subsidies that make Health Insurance more affordable . The conservatives said you only get them, if theres an exchange established by the state. They said those four words clearly mean you dont get the insurance if youre the majority of people who bought insurance on healthcare. Gov on the federal exchange. What the 63 majority said in this case is you have to look at the Health Care Law as an interlocking set of parts. Insurance companies cant deny coverage for preexisting conditions. Everybody has to buy insurance to put more money in the pool and spread the risk. And you have subsidies to make it affordable. Take the subsidies away, the thing collapses and that clearly isnt what congress meant. This was antonin scalias dissent. He wrote, words no longer have meaning, an exchange that is not established by a state is established by the state. It is hard to come up with a clear way to limit tax credits to state exchanges than to use the words established by the state. Thats where he landed on this. He did and he just scoffed at the idea that the majority was going to try to interpret that provision in a broader context. And the chief justice said, look, this thing wasnt written in any kind of clearcut perfect way but thats what legislation is all about. And were going to try to give it a fair reading and a fair interpretation. Justice scalias dissent, again voiced from the bench, so we had two very dramatic days up there and hes sitting right next to the chief. Just dripping with scar chasm. The chief justice is just stonefaced throughout until one moment when Justice Scalia reminds everyone that the court had upheld the law back in 2012. He said, we might as well just call this skodis care. That is the acronym for the Supreme Court of the united states. Otherwise, hey, he had the majority. Thats a good segue to the question i had, which is in 2012, with john roberts first rescue of the Affordable Care act, how is what john roberts did, in that majority, in 2012, different than what we saw just this week . Well, i would just say, and joan can answer too, my thought is that decision three years ago, was everybody going off in a different direction. This was quite clean. You had the majority. You had the dissent. Secondly, this was 63. Anthony kennedy was just veins sticking out in his neck opposed to the law last time. This time, on a totally different question granted, he was all along. The other thing is the majority opinion sort of accepts the whole premises of obamacare. They just say this is how it works and thats why we interpret the law this way, next question. You could even see it in how chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion. Three years ago, he went through a complicated rendition to uphold it. He had to stitch together various rationales, ying and yang. This time, he was very clear confident, as he read. And you really felt like, look, this was a statutory interpretation matter, wasnt really heavy lifting when it comes to what the Supreme Court actually does. He was much more comfortable. Than to bring then to bring along Anthony Kennedy is really something. Is it because theyre not talking about something in the abstract . That may be part of the of it. During oral argument, a lot of talk was about how chaotic it could get if these subsidies were rolled back. The states kind of like the federal Exchange Setup because their residents will get the subsidies without them running the exchanges. Is the whyed now that this might be still a flawed law, but its a constitutionally flawed law . The constitutionality has been accepted. But theres still a couple of challenges out there although you did have the feeling that it has passed the acid test. Theres a lawsuit lurking about whether the thing started on the wrong side of congress and they didnt follow the constitution, how it originated and theres a lawsuit over the administration delaying the start of the Health Insurance mandate through employers. But it seems like its been through the big test. I think its fair to say there was a huge sigh of relief. We saw photos of hugging at the white house. A lot of hugging this week. On both ends of pennsylvania avenue. Doesnt happen a lot in washington. The weeks other big story also told us a story of our shifting society. This time, arising from the pain of racebased conflict. The president started the week with blunt words about why racism will not be erased anytime soon. He spoke on a podcast about the roots of racism and unsettled some with the bluntness of his language. Racism, we are not cured of it. Clearly. And its not just a matter of it not being poll lit to say nigger in public. Thats not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. Its not just a matter of overt discrimination. We have societies dont overnight completely erase everything that happened 2 to 300 years prior. Safe to say the president was more artful today as he delivered the eulogy for Church PastorClementa Pinckney in charleston, South Carolina. Lets start by talking about how listen. Would not be an act of political correctness. It would not be an insult to the valor of confederate soldiers. It would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought, the cause of slavery, was wrong. But it would be a betrayal of everything reverend pinckney stood for i believe, if we allowed ourselves to slip into after comfortable silence again. Lets start by how the white house has responded to those horrific shootings in charleston. Its really been a week of reaction to it. Of course, the president first when we saw him come into the Briefing Room at the white house reacting to the death of nine people in charleston he immediately was torn between his somber frustration and then agitation. And he blended right away together the deaths of someone he knew the reverend pinckney and also this idea that guns was a part of this picture, something he wanted to bring back into the frame. And he got criticized a little bit about that, in addition right away to his decision that some of the avenues had closed to address the question. But in the end, he talked about gun violence three times. And he has come back to it again and again. He ended up doing andditional speech, in the interview you talked about. So you can see the president our first africanamerican president , a man in his second term, really wrestling with this idea of, how do i bring this back into the discussion . The white house is trying to and you could hear the president do this today talk about this in terms of Economic Opportunity in terms of policing and criminal justice, in terms of education, in terms of policies as well as and i think this is the most interesting president obama saying almost, ive given up on congress and what im doing now is im talking to you, American People. You have a role in this too. We want to hear from you. And when he talks about the confederate flag, hes definitely talking about that. Well, lets talk about what the American People are saying back to him and to each other. Michele, you curated a project called the race card project where people write to you about race and identity in six words or less but mostly precisely six words. What kind of conversation has been going on online . Well, its interesting because after the massacre in charleston, there was a lot of just pain and anguish but also people putting that in context with the year weve been living in. So it was a continuum of a long line of pain, where people were also talking about this is where they explain their stories. Talking about freddie gray and Michael Brown and others killed in Police Shootings and the notion that black lives matter and where are we safe. Can i ask you about one . One from a woman, rebecca, tired of saying that we matter. What was her story . People were talking about that. I mean, the notion that the determine black lives matter. Why do we even have to say that . Dont all live matters . One of the things that were interesting, when you started to learn a little bit more about the shooter, dylann roof, people were quick to use this platform to express their concern that he was being portrayed as a loner as someone who was misunderstood, as someone who didnt represent something larger. And then over time, as you saw the manifesto that h