Anti-LGBTQ+ Supreme Court Ruling Based Off Case Involving 'Fake' Customer

A Christian graphic artist who the Supreme Court said can refuse to make wedding websites for gay couples pointed during her lawsuit to a request from a man named “Stewart” and his husband-to-be. The twist? Stewart says it never happened. The revelation has raised questions about how Lorie Smith’s case was allowed to proceed with such an apparent misrepresentation and whether the state of Colorado, which lost the case last week, has any legal recourse. About a month after Alliance Defending Freedom filed the case in Colorado federal court in 2016, lawyers for the state said it should be dismissed partly because Smith hadn’t been harmed by the state’s anti-discrimination law. Smith would first have to get a request from a gay couple and refuse, triggering a possible complaint against her, the state argued. In a February 2017 filing, Smith revealed she had received a website request form submitted by Stewart on September 21, 2016, a few days after the lawsuit was filed. Lawyers for Colorado wrote a brief to the Supreme Court saying it did not amount to an actual request and verification proving the authenticity of the customer is not done. Stewart talked to The Associated Press recently revealing that he didn’t even know his name had been invoked in the case until he was contacted by a reporter for The New Republic. While the revelation cannot change the decision, legal experts are saying that it should’ve come up in the litigation. #Queer Up Courts
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