idk man Clarence Thomas pulling the ladder up behind him striking down affirmative action yesterday, the fucking gay wedding web design ruling wasn’t even real it was hypothetical someone really said well no one has asked me to design a website for their gay wedding but if they did wouldn’t that be fucked up and the court just went whoa yeah that’s so fucked we can’t let that happen, and then they’re like well we’ve all been receiving bribes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for years but we can’t forgive 20k worth of student loan debt that’s just crazy… like everything is just so absurd I can’t really wrap my mind around it
Today’s court ruling weakening discrimination protections for LGBTQ people stands out as extraordinarily strange to me for the simple fact that there was no case. The web designer in question never received a request to create a website for a gay wedding, but instead argued that a hypothetical situation in which she did would violate her rights. I’ve never really heard of anything like this before— how does she even have standing to sue? Can @radiofreederry or someone with more knowledge of legalese than me elaborate on this?
In this latest case, there is no website and no wedding—just an argument from an anti-LGBTQ group in search of the court’s favor…
No person has hired Smith to create a wedding website. In fact, Smith has never designed a wedding website, according to her petition to the court. As such, there is no client Smith has told she is rejecting due to her stated religious beliefs that marriage is only allowed between one man and one woman. In the absence of all that, ADF has, instead, fashioned Smith as the victim of an injury that has never occurred.
So who has hypothetically victimized Smith? A Colorado anti-discrimination law, which, since 2008, has included protections from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. ADF claims Smith’s desire “to bring glory to God by creating unique expression that shares her religious beliefs of creating wedding websites” is thwarted by this law “because she only wants to make websites that comport with her values that same-sex marriage is illegitimate.” Were Smith to get into the wedding website business, the anti-discrimination law “would force me to say things about marriage I disagree with,” Smith wrote in an opinion piece for The Washington Times, when her case was argued at the Supreme Court last December…
Can the court rule on thought experiments?
I’ve been going insane about this because it seems to me that there would literally be no standing in this case. I think I need to dig deeper into this because I feel like this should have been thrown out several courts down for simple failure to state a claim on which relief may be sought, and surely the defense should have been able to figure that out no later than the discovery phase of the initial action.
It looks like the ADF is arguing that the case counts as a “Pre-enforcement challenge,” because Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus (2014) found that “An allegation of future injury may suffice if the threatened injury is ‘certainly impending,’ or there is a 'substantial risk’ that the harm will occur.” So she would likely have standing to sue if there were “substantial risk” she’d be put into her hypothetical situation. But how can she be at “substantial risk” of having someone ask her to make a gay wedding website when she’s never made a wedding website before? This whole thing stretches credulity
It’s incredibly contrived! The plaintiff is not and has not been in the business of designing wedding websites, and the only evidence that they may be asked to do so is fabricated! It’s one of the most flagrant examples of conservative legislating from the bench that I’ve ever seen.
Howdy folks. It’s summertime and while I’m currently focusing on preparing for summer classes to graduate on time, I’m also trying to budget out my slim savings to get out of my toxic parents’ house and stay with my boyfriend for at least a month during my break. But since I’m unemployed, I’m about 200$ short of my goal. If anyone could help by buying me a coffee, I would be very grateful.
I also do prose or fic requests, ghost writing, fiction editing, genre tutoring, and photography+poetry. Check my ko fi above for examples of my art.
Prose, fanfic or ghost writing: 1$ per 100 words (5$ per double-spaced page).
Fiction editing: 1$ per page you’d like my in-depth feedback on.
Genre tutoring: 15$ for a (roughly) hour long lecture on a genre, trope or writing technique of your choice.
Photography + poetry: 15$ for a single image and poem pair, with a subject, tone or prompt of your choice.
I am happy to write or edit ns fw content, but I reserve the right to carte blanche rejection for predatory ships, or fandoms that make me uncomfortable. I will not accept any ns fw requests for underage characters, “aged up” or otherwise. I will also not accept any requests for RPF.
I have the most experience with Persona 3-5, Final Fantasy, League of Legends, Magic the Gathering, Kingdom Hearts, Yu-Gi-Oh, We Know the Devil, Soul Eater and NieR Automata. My strongest subjects are horror, character drama, action and world/lore building.
DM me if any of the above sounds interesting, and we can discuss!
had a lot to say but i am, quite frankly, too tired to talk about this in depth rn. if u need more info on my situation feel free to check my blog!
um but basically, its pride month and next month is disability pride month. im a black + otherwise indigenous intersex + trans + otherwise lgbt disabled person who can not work and has no one to help support me financially. rent/utilities are due in a few days, so is my phone bill, and storage is past due. please help if u can! even if its just an rb!
pp, vmo, and $ are all asteronauts. ok i sleep now i love u
