A key document before the U.S. Supreme Court was likely faked, reports The New Republic, as it turns out the man who supposedly emailed a Christian graphic designer requesting her services for a gay wedding says he didn't send it. He wasn't getting married, he didn't need a graphic designer, and isn't gay.
Yes, that was his name, phone number, email address, and website on the inquiry form. But he never sent this form, he said, and at the time it was sent, he was married to a woman. "If somebody's pulled my information, as some kind of supporting information or documentation, somebody's falsified that," Stewart explained. (Stewart's last name is not included in the filing, so we will be referring to him by his first name throughout this story.)
"I wouldn't want anybody to … make me a wedding website?" he continued, sounding a bit puzzled but good-natured about the whole thing. "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."
Here is what we know—though, to be frank, I do not know what we have learned from this yearslong mystery, other than it looks like Smith and her attorneys have, perhaps unwittingly, invented a gay couple in need of a wedding website in a case in which they argue that same-sex marriages are "false."
The ends justify the means, and standing can be created retroactively. But the right to lie that animates American Christian conservative politics has deeper roots than expedience. Any sin can be forgiven with a whisper. Why, you can even forgive yourself, then get straight back to business. The principle applies whether your passion is for graphic design or for writing for the majority.
