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

[mahatmakanejeeves]

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The Mysterious Case of the Fake Gay Marriage Website, the Real Straight Man, and the Supreme Court
In filings in the 303 Creative vs. Elenis case is a supposed request for a gay wedding website—but the man named in the request says he never filed it.

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Melissa Gira Grant/June 29, 2023

SCOTUS PUZZLE

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

In filings in the 303 Creative v. Elenis case is a supposed request for a gay wedding website—but the man named in the request says he never filed it.

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.”

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[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. The Real Story of 303 Creative v. Elenis

JURISPRUDENCE

The Real Story of 303 Creative v. Elenis
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/real-story-behind-gay-marriage-case.html

The legal reasoning is only part of the story.

BY MARK JOSEPH STERN
JUNE 01, 20235:52 AM

This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. We’re working to change the way the media covers the Supreme Court. Sign up for the pop-up newsletter to stay up to date all through June, and support our work when you join Slate Plus.

Last week, Slate took a close look at how the media covers the Supreme Court, and how we could do better. The package, called “Disorder in the Court,” culminated in a live Amicus show to dissect what we found, and try to set us up better for this end-of-term. One of our chief conclusions was that we tend to talk about decisions in a vacuum, as if they came from nowhere, and the only interesting thing about them is their legal reasoning. But the specifics of the doctrine are only a teeny part of the story. During the live show, each of our panelists tried to tell the backstory of three of the most important cases that the court will decide this June—cases about affirmative action, voting rights, and anti-gay discrimination.

This is a fake case. This is not a real case at all. This is a case about a website designer named Lorie Smith, who makes very bad websites by herself for, like, dog breeders and local Republican politicians. Lorie claims that she really wants to make wedding websites but doesn’t want to make wedding websites for same-sex couples because that would violate her religious beliefs. Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, she filed a First Amendment lawsuit in federal court in Colorado arguing that this vanilla Colorado civil rights law violates her freedom of speech by forcing her to create a custom wedding website for same-sex couples, in violation of what she thinks marriage should be.

Here’s what you need to understand about this case: No one has ever asked her to make a wedding website. Ever. No one will ever ask her—certainly not gay people. Come on.

Why, you might ask, does this case exist? Well, here’s why. Because there have been a bunch of cases like this before: the cake case, where he wouldn’t sell the cake; the flowers case, where she wouldn’t sell the flowers; the photographer case, where she wouldn’t take the pictures. Well, in those cases, you had victims, and who were the victims? The same-sex couples who faced discrimination. And the coverage of those cases and the way they were presented to the court, there were two sides. There was this sweet, sincere Christian who just wants to do what Jesus tells her; and then the couple who wanted some respect in shopping for wedding services and was told, “Sorry, too bad. Because of your identity, I’m not selling you anything.”

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[sarisataka]

2. This needs to be more widely known

People are assuming the case began with an actual gay couple seeking service from the business.