Friday SCOTUS II - LGBTQ Web Designer
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Is this a thing?
Man cited in Supreme Court LGBTQ rights case says he was never involved
On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-to-3 in favor of a Christian graphic artist in Littleton, Colo., who argued that free speech protections allowed her to refuse to design wedding websites for same-sex couples.
Lorie Smith filed her initial case to Colorado district court in 2016, arguing that the state’s anti-discrimination law prevented her from including a message on the webpage for her company, 303 Creative, stating that she would not create wedding websites for gay couples.
In subsequent court documents, her lawyers cited a query that they said was sent by an individual named Stewart with contact information that matches the person The Post interviewed. The request asked for Smith’s services for Stewart’s forthcoming wedding to a person named “Mike.”
“We are getting married early next year and would love some design work done for our invites, placenames etc. We might also stretch to a website,” the message cited in the case read.
However, Stewart told The Post he had never contacted Smith.
Smith also cited the request in court documents as her case progressed to the Supreme Court. But the high court didn’t require that Smith had received a real request from “Stewart & Mike” or anyone else. Smith filed a “pre-enforcement challenge” to the Colorado statute because state would have probably moved against her if she had posted a statement about her intention to refuse service to same-sex couples on her website.
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said a lower court found that a reasonable assumption because of Colorado’s actions in other cases regarding same-sex marriages. On the merits, the court majority said the state of Colorado could not compel her to design any such site because it would “force her to convey messages inconsistent with her belief that marriage should be reserved to unions between one man and one woman.”
Even if the existence of Stewart’s request wasn’t real, the justices did not seem to regard it as legally relevant to considering Smith’s case. The justices who disagreed didn’t raise it as an issue. Writing for the dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the court was denying protection for LGBTQ+ people. “The opinion of the court is, quite literally, a notice that reads: ‘Some services may be denied to same-sex couples.’”
The court filing in Stewart’s name has left many baffled, including Stewart himself, who said he was concerned that the case had proceeded without anyone verifying if the request was authentic. -
Wow, even I can see these lefties are freaking dumb. And I'm a freaking lefty!
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Colorado to pay Smith's legal fees.
The state of Colorado has agreed to pay more than $1.5 million in legal fees to a web designer who won a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that the right to free speech allows some businesses to refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings.
Colorado and web designer Lorie Smith's lawyers at conservative law firm Alliance Defending Freedom disclosed the accord in a court filing last week.
A state board approved the amount, which was less than the nearly $2 million that Smith had originally sought after her free speech win at the high court. The justices in June 2023 ruled 6-3 in favor of Smith, who cited her Christian beliefs in challenging a state anti-discrimination law.
The Colorado attorney general’s office declined to comment on the fee settlement.
