The Mysterious Case of the Fake Gay Marriage Website, the Real Straight Man, and the Supreme Court

[Nevilledog]

https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-gay-marriage-website-real-straight-man-supreme-court

No paywall
https://archive.fo/2Ht3v

Long before the Supreme Court took up one of the last remaining cases it will decide this session—the 303 Creative v. Elenis case, concerning a Colorado web designer named Lorie Smith who refuses to make websites for same-sex weddings and seeks an exemption from anti-discrimination laws—there was a couple named Stewart and Mike. According to court filings from the plaintiff, Stewart contacted Smith in September 2016 about his wedding to Mike “early next year.” He wrote that they “would love some design work done for our invites, placenames etc. We might also stretch to a website.” Stewart included his phone number, email address, and the URL of his own website—he was a designer too, the site showed.

This week, I decided to call Stewart and ask him about his inquiry.

The Supreme Court is expected to deliver its opinion in a case in which Stewart plays a minor role, a case that could be, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor stated by way of a question at oral argument in December, “the first time in the Court’s history … [that] a commercial business open to the public, serving the public, that it could refuse to serve a customer based on race, sex, religion, or sexual orientation.” It took just a few minutes to reach him. I assumed at least some reporters over the years had contacted him about his website inquiry to 303 Creative—his contact information wasn’t redacted in the filing. But my call, he said, was “the very first time I’ve heard of it.”

Yes, that was his name, phone number, email address, and website on the inquiry form. But he never sent this form, he said, and at the time it was sent, he was married to a woman. “If somebody’s pulled my information, as some kind of supporting information or documentation, somebody’s falsified that,” Stewart explained. (Stewart’s last name is not included in the filing, so we will be referring to him by his first name throughout this story.)

“I wouldn’t want anybody to … make me a wedding website?” he continued, sounding a bit puzzled but good-natured about the whole thing. “I’m married, I have a child—I’m not really sure where that came from? But somebody’s using false information in a Supreme Court filing document.”

*snip*

[Nevilledog]

1. Kick

[Midnight Writer]

2. Conservative judges are "fishing" for cases they can use to advance their ideology.

And RW activist groups are responding.

The very definition of the once reviled "Activist Court".

[Volaris]

3. Still..don't you have to have, at least, A REAL COMPLAINT?!

we can just make shit up now, and the SC says 'duuuh, ok, we hear it...'? WHAT?

[Mad_Machine76]

5. Geez

Did it go directly to to SCOTUS?!

[Volaris]

6. Apparently not, but how does this get missed till now?

I mean, if the SC is taking 'WHAT If' cases, let's damnwell put our creative heads together...

[Mad_Machine76]

7. For real

What was that phrase that SCOTUS used to talk about in regards to hypotheticals?

[Mad_Machine76]

4. What interest did the guy (Blum) have

in filing cases against Affirmative Action?! This latest one wasn't even the first. FML

[NowISeetheLight]

8. Standing

Usually to sue you have to have standing. If you're fake there is none?

[Volaris]

9. Yeah, as there's no injured party, cause you haven't been injured yet.

Going to any reasonable court with 'but it COULD HAPPEN', would get the legally equivalent statement of 'yes, AND, monkeys could fly out of my butt. Get lost'