Man denies making request cited in landmark Supreme Court LGBTQ case

As website designer Lorie Smith battled Colorado’s public accommodation law, she claimed that one day after filing her lawsuit, a man requested she design a website for his upcoming same-sex marriage.

But the man, identified in the request as “Stewart,” says he has been married to a woman for more than a decade and never submitted the inquiry.

The Supreme Court on Friday handed Smith a victory in her pre-enforcement lawsuit, ruling along ideological lines that Colorado could not compel the evangelical Christian to design same-sex wedding websites if she expanded her business to offer them for opposite-sex couples. The ruling was one of a handful of landmark cases the court considered this term – one that struck a significant blow to LGBTQ rights.

The justices’ opinions made no reference to the supposed request, and Smith only briefly mentioned it in filings at the Supreme Court.

But the development has raised new scrutiny of Smith and her conservative lawyers’ years-long effort to claw back LGBTQ+ protections, as they had cited the request on multiple occasions in the lower courts while asserting that she had authority to challenge Colorado’s law.

“I’m just really disappointed in the ongoing and sustained attacks on the LGBTQ community in this country, and I’m also disappointed and concerned about the lack of rigor that’s been shown by the lawyers in this case,” said Stewart, who agreed to be interviewed by The Hill on the condition that his last name not be used.

“There’s some evidence there which is easily refutable and easily proven to be incorrect and has been in the case filings for the last five plus years,” he continued. “So it’s concerning that that could make it all the way to the Supreme Court without anybody checking.”

Two Democratic-appointed judges and one Republican-appointed judge on a lower appeals court panel all agreed that Smith had authority to bring her lawsuit regardless of the request. 

The lower court went on to uphold Colorado’s law as constitutional in a divided ruling, leading Smith to appeal to the Supreme Court. 

The high court’s justices did not weigh in on the legal standing issue, as they only agreed to hear Smith’s free speech claims. The court’s six conservatives sided with the web designer Friday, dealing a significant blow to LGBTQ protections in one of the biggest cases of the term.

Stewart said he only learned of his purported connection to the case when contacted last week by The New Republic, which first reported the man’s denial.

He confirmed the email and phone number listed on the supposed request belonged to him, but he said he has been married to a woman for more than a decade. 

Like Smith, Stewart also runs a website and graphic design company. The request listed the sender’s IP address, which corresponds to the San Francisco area, where Stewart lives.

“I did not submit the request. I don’t know who did. I don’t know what their motivations would be,” said Stewart.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the Christian legal organization that represented Smith, said in a statement that the designer doesn’t do background checks on incoming requests to determine if they are genuine, and that it doesn’t impact the outcome because her lawsuit was a pre-enforcement challenge.

“Whether Lorie received a legitimate request or whether someone lied to her is irrelevant,” the group said. “No one should have to wait to be punished by the government to challenge an unjust law. Moreover, Lorie has received other wedding requests and has been unable to respond to any request because that put her at risk of punishment for violating Colorado’s unjust law.”

Friday’s win was the latest and most significant development of ADF’s years-long fight against Colorado’s law, which prevents businesses that serve the public from discriminating on protected characteristics, including sexual orientation.

The group also represented cake baker Jack Phillips, whom Colorado investigated more than a decade ago when he refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, in violation of the law.

Phillips also brought his challenge to the Supreme Court in 2018, but the justices disposed of it on narrower grounds, ruling that the investigation had impermissibly shown hostility toward Phillips’s religious beliefs.

ADF had filed Smith’s pre-enforcement challenge to Colorado’s law roughly two years prior to that decision.

The designer had not yet offered wedding websites, but her lawsuit said she wanted to expand her business, 303 Creative, because she “believes that God is calling her to promote and celebrate His design for marriage.”

The purported request was sent to Smith’s company one day after she filed her lawsuit in September 2016, according to court filings. 

“My wedding. My name is Stewart and my fiancee is 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 request read.

Smith cited the supposed request as part of her argument that she had authority to sue, saying she faced a credible threat of enforcement. 

Colorado contended that she had no legal standing and that the supposed request was irrelevant because it was sent after the lawsuit began. The 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals sided with Smith on the standing issue, but its reasoning did not depend on the request.

“Assuming Appellants offer wedding-related services to the public as they say they will, there is no reason to then conclude that Appellants will fail to attract customers. Nor is there reason to conclude that only customers celebrating opposite-sex marriages will request Appellants’ services. In short, we find nothing ‘imaginary or speculative’ about Appellants’ apprehensions that they may violate CADA if they offer wedding-based services in the manner that they intend,” wrote the two judges, who were appointed in the Clinton era.

At a Friday news conference following the Supreme Court’s ruling, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser (D) said he didn’t know any details about the man’s denial of sending the request.

“Our position in this case has been there is no website development happening, there is no business operating,” he said. “This was a made-up case without the benefit of any real facts or customers. The Supreme Court in our view should never have decided this case or address the merits without any basis in reality.”

Updated 2:06 p.m.