Is Supreme Court's "Gay Wedding" Case Built on a Lie? Man at Center of the Story Says He's Straight

[cbabe]

https://www.democracynow.org/2023/6/30/fake_gay_marriage_website_scotus_case

Is Supreme Court’s “Gay Wedding” Case Built on a Lie? Man at Center of the Story Says He’s Straight

In one of the last cases in the Supreme Court’s current session, the justices ruled in favor of a wedding website designer who wants to be allowed to refuse service to same-sex couples. Lorie Smith of Colorado filed the lawsuit with help from the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom as part of the group’s ongoing attempt to roll back the rights of LGBTQ people. But as reporter Melissa Gira Grant discovered, part of the case may be built on a lie. Smith has never actually built a wedding website; the lone request Smith claims to have received from a gay couple supposedly originated with a straight man in another state who told Grant he had never asked for a website and that he has been married to a woman for many years. “He had no idea that his information was in this case,” says Grant, who wrote about the case for The New Republic.

…more…

(Does no one fact check a court case? There can be no trust in a court that is so inept.

And if the decision was based on bald face and easily verifiable lies can the decision be nullified somehow?)

[elleng]

1. Yes, and a lie on TOP of a lie.

[jimfields33]

17. The AG of the state where the lawsuit began needs to answer some questions.

Isn’t that where it begins?

[Ocelot II]

39. What questions would those be?

The case was filed as a declaratory judgment action in 2016, a very common and entirely legitimate way for a plaintiff to ask a court to declare whether a law applies to them or some proposed conduct. The state stipulated to facts and all through the process the only questions were questions of law. The fake web inquiry was never submitted as evidence and it wouldn't have made any difference even if it had been, since the plaintiff was the web designer seeking a declaration of whether the public accommodations law applied to her proposed wedding website business, and not a hypothetically-injured prospective customer. So what are the questions?

[Ocelot II]

38. Except that the web inquiry was never part of the case.

It was never introduced as evidence (Colorado stipulated to the facts) and it ended up in the court files only because it was among 303 Creative's business records. This case was not procedurally defective; the plaintiff had standing as a party to a declaratory judgment action, and people are missing the damn point by going on about fake things that weren't part of the case, which was that the decision was bad on substantive grounds. The majority held that a web design has First Amendment protection, meaning it wasn't subject to the state's public accommodation law. That's the problem with the case, not all this other chaff. Don't you think after seven years of litigation someone would have noticed procedural problems?

[GreenWave]

2. This should go viral!

[tanyev]

3. Absolute fraud.

Every attorney involved in propelling this case to the Supreme Court should be disbarred.

[Ocelot II]

40. Why? What did they do wrong?

No lawyer relied on the fake web inquiry; it was never even part of the case because the defendant (the state) stipulated to the facts - which didn't involve actual prospective customers at all. Filing a declaratory judgment action is a legitimate way of determining whether a law applies to you, and that's what this plaintiff did. What's wrong with the case is that a majority of the Supremes decided that you can discriminate in your business dealings as long as you can frame it as an exercise of free speech. Concentrate on that, not on procedural defects that didn't exist.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

4. Given that roughly 95% of all the right-wing's grievances are just phony made-up bullshit

Who here is surprised?

[Initech]

46. Yeah they make up shit, then they go on those damn talk shows 24 hours a day.

To convince people that the made up shit is more real than the real things that are happening is. I swear if you took away the talk shows from the GOP, no one would listen to them.

[inthewind21]

48. Kind

of like what is happening in this very thread?

[Zeitghost]

51. Oh the irony

...

[cbabe]

5. Charge plaintiff with fraud and identity theft, at the very least.

[inthewind21]

35. Well

Since there was no "fraud" or "indenty theft", that" not really an option.

[FBaggins]

6. We'll have to lay the blame at the state's feet I'm afraid

The court’s job is to interpret the law and apply it to the facts presented. It’s the opposing counsels’ responsibility to bring up factual errors in the record.

At the SCOTUS level, the facts are not even really part of the case. They presume that the record certified by the lower court(s) is accurate.

[Takket]

7. i'll admit i'm not a lawyer, but have learned quite a bit on DU.......

I thought part of a valid lawsuit was showing injury and having standing? How can you show injury if no gay person ever asked you to build a website, and how can you have standing if the Colorado law they were challenging was never applied to you?

[Volaris]

8. That feels correct. Whoever this straight man is, he should file his own suit,

And when it goes to the SC, they should use it as reason to vacate this week's decision....

But bet u 20 bucks, they would UPHOLD, because Reasons.

[Ocelot II]

50. The straight man was not at the center of the case; he wasn't even relevant.

And what would he sue for? How was he harmed? Apparently someone used his *first* name to make a fake request for information about web services (not even for a wedding web site, as it turns out), to which there was no response. As far as anyone knows it could have been a joke (not that any of us would ever answer a question on the internet with a fake name or email address, right?). The request was determined to be irrelevant, and the case proceeded on stipulated facts and on the legal issue of whether the actual plaintiff's free speech rights overrode her obligation to comply with Colorado's public accommodation law which prohibits discrimination by businesses who offer services to the general public. The man's identity wasn't known until an AP reporter found a record of the fake and irrelevant web services request. He was never a plaintiff and he has no reason to be a plaintiff because he suffered no demonstrable harm. The fake request was not considered or addressed at all by the Supreme Court in deciding the case or dissenting.

[Volaris]

53. Thank you for clearing that up! But if there was no actual request made,

How would her free speech rights have possibly been trodden upon? That feels like the SC saying I can sue the local police for negligence, because they didn't protect me from being abducted by aliens that I claimed happened...

[Ocelot II]

54. The lawsuit was for declaratory and injunctive relief.

In order to have standing in a declaratory judgment action you have to claim that you need a court to declare what your rights are so you are not in danger of violating the law if you do a certain thing that you believe is or should be lawful, and for federal jurisdiction you need to tie that claim to a substantial federal question, e.g. the Constitution. As in many states, Colorado has a law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc., by a business that offers services to the general public. The plaintiff wanted to design and sell wedding web sites but she did not want to make them for same-gender couples because of her religious beliefs. But she didn't want to be penalized by the state if she refused to design wedding websites for same-gender couples, so she brought an action asking the court for a declaration that her web designs were an expression of free speech, and to enjoin the state from taking action against her under the anti-discrimination law. These same kinds of court procedures are used all the time by "our" side; nobody got an abortion in Roe v. Wade, for example; the case was brought to enjoin the future enforcement of states' stringent abortion laws. Nothing about this case was procedurally defective, and people are barking up the wrong tree instead of paying attention to the fact that the court made it possible in some cases for businesses to use "free speech" as an excuse to avoid the sanctions of state anti-discrimination laws while discriminating.

[FBaggins]

11. Standing wasn't really an issue here

The OP is unintentionally deceptive because the case was actually a pre-enforcement challenge and not based on the fake scenario that occurred later. If she had standing to bring the case before there was a request to build such a website - she clearly has standing to appeal a ruling that went against her after a (fake) website request is added to the story.

[Effete Snob]

19. Yep

The bogus request is a red herring. It was never investigated because it had no role in the case.

It’s amazing how people seem not to understand that there was a set of competent lawyers on the other side.

[shrike3]

23. Because the optics are that bad.

[Hortensis]

25. Yep. The mystery non-defendant

was not involved in the case, as irrelevant as any of us with about as much standing. Which is to say none.

What bothers me is that anyone could imagine such extreme incompetence in all the lawyers involved right up through the supreme court that it would take them to spot a sinister or at least questionable glaring error.

[Ocelot II]

42. The plaintiff filed a declaratory judgment action, a common way to determine

whether your actions or proposed actions might subject you to legal jeopardy. It's a way to ask a court to declare what the law is as applied to your situation. This is sufficient to confer standing. Don't you think someone might have objected on the grounds of standing before the case even got to the Supreme Court, or that Sotomayor might have mentioned it in her dissent? This case was not procedurally defective; what's wrong with it is that the court held that designing a web site is an exercise of the First Amendment, so invoking a right to "free speech" can be used to circumvent a state's public accommodation law that applies to offering services to the general public.

[2naSalit]

9. Yes...

And it gets worse because there was no case in the first place, they made it up.

[Ocelot II]

43. They did nothing of the kind. Don't you think Sotomayor would have mentioned that

in her dissent if it were true? The plaintiff web designer filed a declaratory judgment action - a perfectly legit thing to do - in federal court in CO to determine whether the state's public accommodation law applied to her proposed wedding web design business. This conferred standing. The state stipulated to the facts. The case was not procedurally defective; the decision was a bad one because it allows the First Amendment to be used as a justification for discriminating against potential customers. Pay some fucking attention to what really happened, because this was not a pretend or fake case that can be discounted for procedural defects that don't exist. It's a real case with a shitty holding, so read the fucking opinion and try to understand what really happened and what it means. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf

[2naSalit]

45. Well...

That makes more sense.

[edhopper]

10. They knew this

they just needed something to hang this decision on. No more fraudulent than any of their rulings.

[Zeitghost]

41. The decision in no way hangs on the website contact inquiry

It was submitted as part of discovery after the case was filed. It was never used as evidence and it had no impact on the case, the ultimate decision or the dissent by the three liberal Justices. It's completely inconsequential.

[elleng]

12. It's about as moot/premature/un-hearable as a case can get.

Court as 'stretching' as it can get.

[Ocelot II]

29. No, it wasn't. It was a declaratory judgment action

which permits a court to decide whether a law applies to a party or a situation before the party acts.

[Midnight Writer]

13. Let's just call it..."Alternative Facts".

[no_hypocrisy]

14. Was any or all of this brought up at trial?

Why was the case allowed to progress?

And on appeal, these deficiencies weren't highlighted?

[Effete Snob]

18. No, because it didn't matter

The significance of the fake request is being overstated, to put it charitably. The case was not “based” on the fake request. FBaggins comment above is correct.

No, the state of Colorado’s attorneys are not incompetent.

The complaint was not premised on the fake request which played no role in the summary judgment that was appealed.

[no_hypocrisy]

21. Got it.

[Ocelot II]

49. There was no trial; it was an appeal from summary judgment.

Last edited Mon Jul 3, 2023, 07:44 PM - Edit history (1)

There were no genuine issues of material fact; the parties stipulated to the facts and the fake web request was never considered relevant.

[Qutzupalotl]

15. sorry decisis

[moondust]

16. Legislating from the bench. n/t

[msfiddlestix]

20. I was assuming that the case was actually argued before the supreme court justices. but was it?

and if it was argued which I presumed all cases to be decided are, why didn't the opposing counselor bring up the fact the business didn't actually exist or there was no actual standing i wonder?

[Effete Snob]

22. It went through two courts along the way

Facts aren’t argued at the SC. These are the attorneys being accused of incompetence:

Billy Lee Seiber
1300 Broadway
Colorado Attorney General's Office, Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center
Denver, CO 80203

Jack Davy Patten , III
1300 Broadway
Colorado Attorney General's Office, Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center
Denver, CO 80203

Leanne B. De Vos
1300 Broadway
Colorado Attorney General's Office, Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center
Denver, CO 80203

Skippere Stewart Spear
1300 Broadway
Colorado Attorney General's Office, Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center
Denver, CO 80203

Vincent Edward Morscher
1300 Broadway
Colorado Attorney General's Office, Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center
Denver, CO 80203

[msfiddlestix]

24. interersting thank you.

[Ocelot II]

44. Because the the plaintiff did have standing.

It was a declaratory judgment action, which is a common way for a plaintiff to determine their legal rights or exposure before they do something. And the fake web inquiry never had anything to do with the case and was never used as evidence; the state stipulated to the facts.

[msfiddlestix]

47. Interesting. I was not aware this is a common practice

We would all benefit to know.

Anyone can test a legal theory by way of inventing a legal issue (framed as a constitutional matter)cloaked in every conceivable frame of legal reference available, then file a lawsuit with a lower federal (?) court playing the long game as appeals make the way up to the supreme court while in the meantime making bank in fund raising campaigns and schemes including backers investments all the way up to the USSC?

Damn, what a way to make a living. just need to raise big funds to pay off lawyers and judges.

[Hugin]

26. This ruling was rotten to the core...

It has always been my understanding that any private business can decline to provide a product or service without reason.

It would be stupid to do so, but that’s not the question.

What they wanted with this ruling was legal permission to broadcast their specific bigoted reason for rejecting a project without consequence. Which is beyond the SCrOTUS to grant no matter how many rulings are made.

[Ocelot II]

30. Most states have public accommodation laws

which prohibit business that offer services to the general public from discriminating by refusing service on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc. The web designer brought a declaratory judgment action to get a court to decide whether CO's public accommodation law applied to her web design services before she started designing wedding web sites but excluded same-sex weddings. After the case worked its way through the appellate system the Supreme Court held that original web designs were protected by the First Amendment and were not "services" governed by the public accommodation statute. That's all there was to it. Read the whole thing here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf

[Hugin]

31. There are a million reasons to decline a project...

The state accommodation laws are there to allow a plaintiff to sue if they can demonstrate a pattern of discrimination. They have to prove it, however.

Which takes time and research which is easily dispelled in defense by simply playing the “capacity” card. Doing “x” for “y”, exceeded the capacity of the business. Which is why I believe that this farce went with a web design company that doesn’t actually make anything. They wanted the case to go to the SC, instead of doing what any real company would do and as you say accommodating the plaintiff and getting on with the business of making a living.

I still say that this case was solely to provide legal cover for bigotry. No legitimate business is going to turn down paying customers on principle alone. Business is in general amoral, if it intends to stay in business.

[Ocelot II]

32. But the plaintiff's motivation was irrelevant to the legal issues.

Businesses turn down customers all the time, sometimes for legitimate reasons; sometimes for bad ones. It's up to them to decide whether they need those customers or not.

[Hugin]

34. Yes, I agree. This case was constructed around a...

Hypothetical plaintiff and also as it turns out a hypothetical defense. It sure precludes the parties from reaching a pesky settlement on the way to the SCOTUS.

If a business announces its bigotry up front, it’s really cutting into the potential customer base and there’s no way the SCOTUS can rule that customers have to buy their product.

This whole case is so fake and hollow I am really having trouble discerning the point except for the SC announcing their own bigotry.

[Ocelot II]

36. The plaintiff is not hypothetical.

She runs a real business and wanted a court to declare whether the law permitted her to decline to design wedding websites for same-sex couples. Declaratory judgments are not cases based on hypothetical injury, but the desire to avoid real injury. The case was not procedurally defective; it did not rely on fake evidence. Colorado stipulated to the facts.While the motivation was most likely dodgy, supported by anti-LGTB groups or funds, the case was not hypothetical. I wish people would stop looking for procedural defects and consider the legal issue on its merits - is a business that designs web sites offering a service subject to a public accommodation law prohibiting discrimination, or is it exercising protected free speech? That's the issue; the rest is just chaff and blathering about it is a waste of hot air.

[Hugin]

37. My point is that yes free speech is fine...

But, it comes with consequences.

Is this “plaintiff” asking for the court to relieve her from the consequences of her free speech?

Loss of business? A negative reputation? Not getting invited to parties? That’s beyond the reach of even a severely pompous SCOTUS to grant.

[Ms. Toad]

52. She's asking to he allowed go advertise in way that violates tyre law on public accommodations

Without having to violate the law first and challenge the law by fighting the legal consequences of that violation. That's why it was a suit for injunctive relief - the relief is essentially a court order that says there are no legal consequences for designing wedding websites and stating up front that she will not design such a website for a same gender wedding. She was not seeking damages, nor was she awarded any.

[Trenzalore]

27. They are allowing cert on hypotheticals where no actual damage can be proven

I bet the "Christian" lady doesn't even do a wedding website after this.

[Ocelot II]

33. Once again, it was a declaratory judgment action.

This is a type of lawsuit in which the plaintiff can ask a court to interpret a law before taking action that might put them in legal jeopardy. It's not a hypothetical at all; these sorts of cases are common.

[Ocelot II]

28. Except that the inquiry was never used or considered in the case.

Last edited Mon Jul 3, 2023, 07:59 PM - Edit history (1)

As I have tried to explain ad nauseam, the case was brought as a declaratory judgment action so the web designer would know in advance whether she was in danger violating CO's public accommodations law if she refused to design wedding web sites for same-sex couples. She neither accepted nor rejected the inquiry and it was not considered to be relevant evidence in the case; it appeared in the court files later only because it was among the business' documents and records. It was irrelevant. The case was decided entirely (and wrongly, IMO) on the legal issue of whether original web designs are expressions of free speech or a public accommodation service. That's it. Read the damn opinion. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf