In favor of religious liberty

[PetrChelcicky]

Well, I think an Anabaptist site like "Anabaptist World" OUGHT to be interested in religious liberty and report about it. But they aren't and they don't. So I feel completely free to wander to the much-defamed Christian Nationalists to get informed. In this case
https://patriotpost.us/articles/98508-r ... 2023-07-03

The more interesting case is of a woman who refuted to design a wedding website for a gay couple. The SCOTUS has decided that Colorado cannot enforce his citizens to do this by means an of antidiscrimination law. Neil Gorsuch has here rightly reestablished the idea of "tolerance".

In older and better times, people distinguished between "tolerance" and "acceptance". I remember very well that homosexual activists said that tolerance is not enough, but acceptance is needed. As an expression of personal wishes, this is okay. As a legal formula it is self-contradictory. Ms. Smith does not accept gay marriage, but makes no attempt to prevent it,i.e. she tolerates it. In the same way, nobody demands that the state of Colorado must accept Ms. Smith' views. But we can demand that the state tolerates them.
We can make an exception for true basic needs where everyone can be expected to support everyone. But a wedding website is no basic need at all, and a wedding website designed by Ms.Smith personally is even less a basic need. (Imho, a lot of those trials are mere harassment-by-law, concocted by LGBTQ organizations against people who have not much standing and normally cannot effort the expenses for a lawsuit. Which is why Mennonite churches OUGHT to organize support for those people. And should accept gay members only if they credibly distance themselves from those LGBTQ practices.

[Ken]

The more interesting case is of a woman who refuted to design a wedding website for a gay couple. The SCOTUS has decided that Colorado cannot enforce his citizens to do this by means an of antidiscrimination law. Neil Gorsuch has here rightly reestablished the idea of "tolerance".

You should realize that the whole case you just mentioned was fake.

The women in question in Colorado does not actually design wedding web sites for a living. In fact she has never designed a single wedding web site for anyone, gay or straight.

Nor has any gay couple ever even asked her to design a wedding web site for them. In the lower court filing her attorneys claimed that a gay couple had requested a gay wedding web site from her but this turned out to be a lie. The Washington Post looked into it and found out the person they claimed had requested a gay wedding web site was actually straight and had been married for 15 years and was, in fact, a web site designer himself and had never made any request to Lori Smith: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

DENVER — A Colorado web designer who the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday could refuse to make wedding websites for gay couples cited a request from a man who says he never asked to work with her.

The request in dispute, from a person identified as “Stewart,” wasn’t the basis for the federal lawsuit filed preemptively seven years ago by web designer Lorie Smith, before she started making wedding websites. But as the case advanced, it was referenced by her attorneys when lawyers for the state of Colorado pressed Smith on whether she had sufficient grounds to sue.

The revelation distracts from Smith’s victory at a time when she might have been basking in her win, which is widely considered a setback for gay rights.

Smith named Stewart — and included a website service request from him, listing his phone number and email address in 2017 court documents. But Stewart told The Associated Press he never submitted the request and didn’t know his name was invoked in the lawsuit until he was contacted this week by a reporter from The New Republic, which first reported his denial.

“I was incredibly surprised given the fact that I’ve been happily married to a woman for the last 15 years,” said Stewart, who declined to give his last name for fear of harassment and threats. His contact information, but not his last name, were listed in court documents.

He added that he was a designer and “could design my own website if I need to” — and was concerned no one had checked into the validity of the request cited by Smith until recently.

In other words, she is not a wedding web site designer and has never designed a wedding web site for anyone. In 2016 she (or her attorneys) invented a fake gay client in order to sue to get Colorado's anti-discrimination law overturned even though at that point Colorado law had never once affected her and she wasn't even a wedding web site designer. And in the intervening 7 years she still hasn't designed a single wedding web site. Here's another article on the case: https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/ ... reme-court

And here in a December 2022 article she admits that she has never actually designed a wedding web site for anyone, gay or straight: https://www.cpr.org/2022/12/01/this-col ... ats-legal/

[Sliceitup]

So I feel completely free to wander to the much-defamed Christian Nationalists to get informed.

You might want to wander somewhere else too. The way they described what happened in Groff v Dejoy is really innacurate.

[Josh]

The more interesting case is of a woman who refuted to design a wedding website for a gay couple. The SCOTUS has decided that Colorado cannot enforce his citizens to do this by means an of antidiscrimination law. Neil Gorsuch has here rightly reestablished the idea of "tolerance".

You should realize that the whole case you just mentioned was fake.

The women in question in Colorado does not actually design wedding web sites for a living. In fact she has never designed a single wedding web site for anyone, gay or straight.

Nor has any gay couple ever even asked her to design a wedding web site for them. In the lower court filing her attorneys claimed that a gay couple had requested a gay wedding web site from her but this turned out to be a lie. The Washington Post looked into it and found out the person they claimed had requested a gay wedding web site was actually straight and had been married for 15 years and was, in fact, a web site designer himself and had never made any request to Lori Smith: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

DENVER — A Colorado web designer who the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday could refuse to make wedding websites for gay couples cited a request from a man who says he never asked to work with her.

The request in dispute, from a person identified as “Stewart,” wasn’t the basis for the federal lawsuit filed preemptively seven years ago by web designer Lorie Smith, before she started making wedding websites. But as the case advanced, it was referenced by her attorneys when lawyers for the state of Colorado pressed Smith on whether she had sufficient grounds to sue.

The revelation distracts from Smith’s victory at a time when she might have been basking in her win, which is widely considered a setback for gay rights.

Smith named Stewart — and included a website service request from him, listing his phone number and email address in 2017 court documents. But Stewart told The Associated Press he never submitted the request and didn’t know his name was invoked in the lawsuit until he was contacted this week by a reporter from The New Republic, which first reported his denial.

“I was incredibly surprised given the fact that I’ve been happily married to a woman for the last 15 years,” said Stewart, who declined to give his last name for fear of harassment and threats. His contact information, but not his last name, were listed in court documents.

He added that he was a designer and “could design my own website if I need to” — and was concerned no one had checked into the validity of the request cited by Smith until recently.

In other words, she is not a wedding web site designer and has never designed a wedding web site for anyone. In 2016 she (or her attorneys) invented a fake gay client in order to sue to get Colorado's anti-discrimination law overturned even though at that point Colorado law had never once affected her and she wasn't even a wedding web site designer. And in the intervening 7 years she still hasn't designed a single wedding web site. Here's another article on the case: https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/ ... reme-court

And here in a December 2022 article she admits that she has never actually designed a wedding web site for anyone, gay or straight: https://www.cpr.org/2022/12/01/this-col ... ats-legal/

Ah, yes, a case so fake that it made it all the way to the SCOTUS and was decided 6-3.

[temporal1]

PetrC:
.. The more interesting case is of a woman who refuted to design a wedding website for a gay couple.
The SCOTUS has decided that Colorado cannot enforce his citizens to do this by means an of antidiscrimination law.
Neil Gorsuch has here rightly reestablished the idea of "tolerance". ..

Of course, tremendous NOISE surrounds this case, as is the nature of those involved, “win-lose-or-draw.”
Whether protesting or reveling, NOISE. POMP. THEATRICS.

It appears, the SCOTUS ruling will stand, regardless of alleged “fabrications.”
Evidently, principle is at center, not simplistic winning or losing.

[Ken]

Ah, yes, a case so fake that it made it all the way to the SCOTUS and was decided 6-3.

What exact part of what I wrote do you find inaccurate?

[Grace]

You should realize that the whole case you just mentioned was fake

Liberal media attempted to paint the latest Supreme Court case as fake. Lori Smith wanted to expand her existing business of graphic design to include services seeking websites for weddings. However she feared if she expanded the business the state of Colorado would use Anti-Discrimination Act to force her to create websites for weddings/marriages she couldn't endorse and that would violate her free speech. In anticipation of the possible use of the Anti-Discrimination Act being used against her she filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction to prevent the State from forcing her to create websites celebrating marriages that defy her belief that marriage should be reserved to unions between one man and one woman.

Justice Gorsuch said it well.
"The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands. If [Smith] wishes to speak, she must either speak as the State demands or face sanctions for expressing her own beliefs, sanctions that may include compulsory participation in 'remedial ... training,' filing periodic compliance reports as officials deem necessary, and paying monetary fines," he said, referencing the penalties for violating Colorado's public accommodations law. "Under our precedents, that 'is enough,' more than enough, to represent an impermissible abridgment of the First Amendment's right to speak freely."

Our nation has had a history of the LGTB community demanding speech that impinges on the First Amendment rights of people who own certain types of businesses, such as website designers and cake decorators.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/2 ... 6_c185.pdf

This is not a fake case, as the main stream media has projected it to be. Lori Smith already had a graphic design business, but wanted to expand it. Something she has a right to do. Filing a lawsuit to protect her speech in the future isn't fake, but it was forethought and a method to protect her business expansion. There have been cases where people did not foresee what can happen when they become the object of the radical element of the LGTB community. And they paid dearly.

[Ken]

Filing a lawsuit to protect her speech in the future isn't fake, but it was forethought and a method to protect her business expansion. There have been cases where people did not foresee what can happen when they become the object of the radical element of the LGTB community. And they paid dearly.

Except that the law actually doesn't work that way. You have to show an actual harm to sue, not a theoretical one. No one has standing to sue to challenge a law that doesn't actually affect them. She is not and has never been a wedding web site designer and no LGBT people have ever asked her to make a gay marriage web site. That was a lie her lawyers introduced into court.

In this case it was actually an error at the lower courts. The lower courts should have dismissed the case, but no one actually caught the lie until it got to the Supreme Court and reporters started digging.

[Josh]

If there were no jurisdiction, the Supreme Court would have said so (or a lower court). She definitely did have jurisdiction.

As far as the claims that no LGBT person would ever bring a discrimination complaint, well, that's precisely what happened in Masterpiece Cakeshop.

[Ken]

If there were no jurisdiction, the Supreme Court would have said so (or a lower court). She definitely did have jurisdiction.

As far as the claims that no LGBT person would ever bring a discrimination complaint, well, that's precisely what happened in Masterpiece Cakeshop.

And the bakery in Masterpiece Cake Shop actually had standing to sue. That is the difference.

In this case the Supreme Court simply chose to ignore the issue of standing because they wanted to reach down and make a ruling on this topic. And since there is no higher court there is no one to stop them. Although this sort of judicial activism is tanking their reputation and standing in American society and their reputation and approval rating is now in free-fall. They don't seem to care I guess.