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.”

{snip}

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