Can We Bury This Now?

Legal experts shoot down the idea that an apparently bogus inquiry to a site designer in Colorado opposed to same-sex marriages played a key role in last week's decision. https://t.co/2lfDS0gJo3

— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 4, 2023

The plaintiff says, contrary to the New Republic article, that the sham client story came from an e-mail sent to her after the case was filed. True or false, nothing much came of it.

The federal judge who initially ruled on the case, Marcia S. Krieger, brushed off the relevance of the email in her decision, saying that "it is not clear that Stewart and Mike are a same-sex couple (as such names can be used by members of both sexes)." 

Krieger found Smith had standing to sue regardless but ruled against her claims. Smith appealed to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which also found she had standing but rejected her legal challenge. 

The appeals court found Smith and her company had "sufficiently demonstrated both an intent to provide graphic and web design services to the public in a manner that exposes them to [Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act] liability, and a credible threat that Colorado will prosecute them under that statute." 

In his majority opinion, Gorsuch cited the appeals court's finding on standing and wrote that "no party challenges these conclusions." 

He also found that Smith "had established a credible threat that, if she follows through on her plans to offer wedding website services, Colorado will invoke CADA to force her to create speech she does not believe or endorse." 

In a sharply worded 38-page dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the ruling "heartbreaking" and said it was part of “a backlash to the movement for liberty and equality for gender and sexual minorities” and a type of “reactionary exclusion.” 

One thing Sotomayor didn't mention, Whelan noted, was any concern about Smith's legal standing to bring the case in the first place. 

"Every justice agreed," he said.

"legal experts" defined here as people who have looked at the relevant court papers before spouting off on Twitter https://t.co/aHHVjskVWo

— Lawrence Hurley (@lawrencehurley) July 5, 2023

Now maybe we can focus on the Court’s problematic legal reasoning.