At the White House Pride celebration this month, an event that was marred by public nudity, President Joe Biden said there’s something “very wrong in America” and stated that a person “can be married in the morning and thrown out of a restaurant for being gay in the afternoon” in the United States — a claim that Politifact checked in an article published Friday.

In Biden’s remarks on the South Lawn, he told the gathered Pride celebrants that his administration felt ‘such pride” in the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act, then added a caveat.

“But for all the progress we’ve made, we know, we know real change, real challenges still remain,” he said. “When a person can be married in the morning and thrown out of a restaurant for being gay in the afternoon, something is still very wrong in America.”

Politifact checked the claim, which is called an “illustration,” noting it drew criticism but arguing that “Biden’s illustration is not without factual backing” in the article that ultimately rated his claim “Mostly True.”

“Same-sex marriage is federally protected, but dining in a restaurant with your same-sex spouse is not,” Politifact wrote. The site noted that there are 22 states where discrimination at a restaurant based on sexual orientation is not expressly prohibited at the state level, adding, “However, it is hard to tell how often this sort of discrimination actually occurs and where.”

The article also noted that even in such states where there’s no specific law, “protections can also vary from city to city and town to town,” and provided some examples of those protections, but quoted a law professor calling them “weak” and criticizing that penalties may only be a fine.

The article cited a few news reports from the last decade that indicate individuals or couples may have been discriminated against at specific locations, some in places with no such laws and some in places that do have laws against it.

The article calling Biden’s claim mostly true also quoted Human Rights Campaign’s Sarah Warbelow stating that there has been “a decline in discrimination against same-sex couples” but not an “elimination” of it.

“Biden is accurate in that this can happen, but his remarks need clarification,” Politifact concluded. “Some states do provide some legal protection against discrimination and it’s unclear how commonly this occurs. We rate his claim Mostly True.”

Although there were no examples of a couple being married in the morning and refused service that afternoon, the Mostly True rating, on the grounds that it is not impossible for it to happen, was the basis of the site’s tweet on the article.

That rating prompted some negative reactions on social media.

Politifact is run by The Poynter Institute and claims to be non-partisan, a claim which conservatives often object is itself not factual. Negative reactions to the site’s fact checks are almost always from the right.

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