Hate group may have faked key argument in LGBTQ+ Supreme Court case. And they might win.

Just as the Supreme Court is set to rule in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis – a Supreme Court case about a Christian web designer who doesn’t want to make wedding websites for same-sex couples – a report provides evidence that the plaintiff faked a key argument for proving her case.

The plaintiff – represented by the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) – said that a gay man named Stewart sent her a request for design work for his wedding to his husband-to-be, “Mike.” But a reporter called Stewart and found out that he’s straight, he has never heard of the plaintiff or her case, and he’s a web designer himself who could have made his own wedding website.

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Lorie Smith runs a web design company in Colorado that doesn’t do wedding websites and – unlike other Christians who have sued for a religious exemption to state anti-discrimination laws – she has not been investigated for discriminating against a same-sex couple. She and ADF argue that her free speech as a web designer is being stifled even if the state of Colorado hasn’t investigated her for discrimination yet.

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Smith originally filed her lawsuit in 2016 and lost. No one asked her to make them a gay wedding website, according to her original filing. The state of Colorado filed a motion to dismiss her lawsuit since no one had even asked her to make a website for a same-sex couple’s wedding, arguing she didn’t have standing. A month later, ADF responded that it was not necessary for her to have received a request, that her free speech was being stifled by the mere existence of the Colorado anti-discrimination law.

But then in early 2017 ADF added an online inquiry from Stewart to the evidence provided to the court. The inquiry said that Stewart wanted “some design work done for our invites, placenames etc. We might also stretch to a website.” His phone number and email address were included in the inquiry and not redacted.

“Notably, any claim that Lorie will never receive a request to create a custom website celebrating a same-sex ceremony is no longer legitimate because Lorie has received such a request,” ADF stated in the 2017 filing, which included a sworn statement that Smith “received a request through the ‘contact’ webpage on my website from a person named, ‘Stewart,’ reference number 9741406, to create graphic designs for invitations and other materials for a same-sex wedding (‘same-sex wedding request’).” 

Melissa Gira Grant of The New Republic called Stewart and asked him about the case. He said this was “the very first time I’ve heard of it.” He also said that he’s married to a woman.

“If somebody’s pulled my information, as some kind of supporting information or documentation, somebody’s falsified that,” he said. “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.”

Also, it turns out that Stewart is a web designer himself. He said that he’s known in design circles because he has spoken at conferences and on podcasts and is an avid social media user, but that he had never heard of Smith.

“I wouldn’t want anybody to… make me a wedding website?” he told Grant. He also lives in San Francisco, making it even more strange that he would ask a relatively unknown designer in Colorado to make him a website.

Stewart’s supposed inquiry was included in documents submitted to both the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court in the case, and a decision in the case is expected later today.

While it’s not known yet whether the document will be key to the Supreme Court’s opinion, ADF apparently thought it was important to the case. A federal judge in 2017 dismissed the importance of Stewart’s inquiry, saying that Smith and ADF didn’t prove that Stewart and Mike were a same-sex couple. When ADF appealed, instead of calling Stewart to confirm his and Mike’s genders, they consulted Social Security records and argued, “According to Social Security Administration (SSA) data, only a nanoscopic number of women have been named Stewart or Mike since 1880. Lorie faces a 16 times greater chance of being struck by lightning than either name being female.”

ADF and Smith aren’t answering questions about Stewart’s request.