Gay website case
On the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court's judgment last week in favor of a Christian graphic artist who said it would violate her religious beliefs to create wedding websites for same-sex couples, a man whose entitle and contact information appeared in case documents with an alleged request to use the designer's services for a same-sex wedding is denying ever contacting the company.
But a legal expert says even if that claim by the plaintiff's side wasn't correct, it wouldn't have any practical impact on the case.
The man, who is identified by his first name, Stewart, in court filings, told CBS News and a number of other news outlets that he "did not deliver any requests" to Resourceful, the web design business founded roughly a decade ago by Lorie Smith. The New Republic first reported on his claim, and he told the magazine he was already married to his wife when the purported request was submitted.
The request from "Stewart" did not actually activate the lawsuit that Smith originally filed in Colorado seven years ago, before she started designing wedding websites. She brought what's known as a "pre-enforcement challenge" to the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, or CADA, a state law pr
Supreme Court rules website planner can decline to produce same-sex wedding websites
The court handed a major victory to business owners who oppose same-sex marriage for religious reasons on Friday. A six-justice majority agreed that Colorado cannot enforce a state anti-discrimination commandment against a Christian website designer who does not want to create wedding websites for same-sex couples because doing so would violate her First Amendment right to free speech.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority, in a decision joined by Principal Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. He explained that Colorado cannot &#;force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance.&#; And he indicated that the court&#;s decision would provide similar protection to other business owners whose services involve speech, such as artists, speechwriters, and movie directors.
But in her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor – in an opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – called the decision &#;a sad day in the American constitutional law and in th
Here is what we know—though, to be frank, I do not know what we have learned from this yearslong mystery, other than it looks appreciate Smith and her attorneys have, perhaps unwittingly, invented a gay couple in need of a wedding website in a case in which they dispute that same-sex marriages are “false.”
When Smith and her attorneys, the Christian right group Alliance Defending Autonomy, or ADF, brought this case for the first time, it was to the United States District Court in Colorado in , and they clueless. Smith and ADF filed the case on September 20 of that year, asking the court to enjoin the state anti-discrimination law so that Smith could begin offering her wedding website design services to straight couples only. Up to this indicate, Smith had never engineered any wedding website. (In fact, her website six months prior to the lawsuit being filed in does not include any of the Christian messaging that it did shortly afterward and today, archived versions of the site show.) The initial lawsuit did not mention the “Stewart” inquiry, which was submitted to Smith’s website on September 21, according to the date-stamp shown in later court filings, indicating that she received it the day
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AMYGOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, , The War and Peace Report. I&#;m Amy Goodman.
Today the Supreme Court issues two more decisions, including one brought by a Colorado wedding website designer who wants to be allowed to refuse service to same-sex couples. Lorie Smith filed the lawsuit with help from the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom as part of the group&#;s ongoing attacks on the rights of LGBTQIA people. Smith said a Colorado law that bars businesses from refusing to deal a product to same-sex attracted couples is a violation of her right to free speech as someone who opposes same-sex marriage. But new reporting shows Smith never once made a wedding website, and a key document in the case may be fake.
For more, we&#;re unified by Melissa Gira Grant, staff writer at The New Republic. Her brand-new piece is headlined &#;The Mysterious Case of the Fake Gay Marriage Website, the Real Straight Male, and the Supreme Court.&#;
OK, Melissa, lay it out for us. Tell us what you discovered about the case the Supreme Court is ruling on today.
MELISSAGIRAGRANT: [inaudible] weird story, just to start there. So, in , this website desig
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