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SCOTUS Anti-LGBTQ Case Includes ‘Falsified’ Claim Alleging a Straight Married Man Asked for a Same-Sex Marriage Website: Report

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Attorneys for a Colorado web designer using her personal Christian beliefs to sue over the state’s anti-discrimination law have reportedly included in their court filings a claim that a man, after their case was initially filed in 2016, asked her to create a website for his upcoming same-sex wedding.

The case, 303 Creative vs. Elenis, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in December and likely will hand down its decision Friday.

The web designer, Lorie Smith, says she wants to expand her business to make wedding websites, but says she can’t because rejecting a same-sex couple’s request could violate Colorado law, and her religious beliefs do not support same-sex marriage.

Initially, no same-sex couple had asked her make a website for their wedding — not surprising since she wasn’t in the business of making wedding websites.

READ MORE: ‘Woke Ideology’: DeSantis Vows to Kill Four Federal Agencies – Including One That Manages US Nuclear Weapons

But after the case was filed, a same-sex couple named Stewart and Mike, according to court documents as The New Republic reports, did ask Smith for a wedding website. Stewart’s name, email address, phone number, and even his website URL were included in the filings, yet no reporter appears to have ever contacted him to verify his story.

Until now.

He says it’s false.

“It took just a few minutes to reach him,” The New Republic’s Melissa Gira Grant reported Thursday. “I assumed at least some reporters over the years had contacted him about his website inquiry to 303 Creative—his contact information wasn’t redacted in the filing. But my call, he said, was ‘the very first time I’ve heard of it.'”

Grant reports Stewart says his contact information is accurate, 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.”

She adds, “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.'”

READ MORE: ‘Amen’: Caitlyn Jenner Praises Nikki Haley’s Anti-Trans Attack

“I don’t live inside Stewart’s computer—there’s a chance that he’s not telling me the whole story,” Grant offers, “that this is some elaborate prank he pulled years ago and doesn’t want to confess to now. But if he’s telling the truth—that this request was done completely without his knowledge—I don’t have any answers for him.. None of this makes sense to me.”

Smith is represented by attorneys from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which appears – along with a lengthy explanation for its inclusion – on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups.

Stewart had more to say.

“I’m not really sure where that came from,” Stewart told Grant, who says he “is a designer himself, something of a known quantity in design circles—he’s spoken at conferences and on podcasts, and has a ‘decent Twitter following,’ he said. The design world is small. But not small enough, he said, that he had heard of Lorie Smith—not until her case was already before the Supreme Court, and the design community began discussing its potential fallout.”

“I disagree with this, in the strongest possible terms,” Stewart told Grant of Smith’s desire to not create websites for same-sex couples. “I couldn’t disagree with her stance more.”

And Stewart has some questions of his own.

READ MORE: Liberty University VP Cites Hitler and Stalin in Plea for Conservatives to ‘Control Education’

“It didn’t make sense to him, he told me later via text message. Why would a web designer—as the website the inquiry referenced as his own made clear that he was—living in San Francisco, seek to hire someone in another state who has never built a wedding website, let alone a website for a same-sex wedding, to build his wedding website?”

Read The New Republic’s full report here.

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‘They’re Coming After Our Children’: Watch Casey DeSantis’ Dystopian Fear-Mongering Ad

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The imagery is dark. The words are defiant. The message is dystopian. An ad for Republican Governor Ron DeSantis‘s presidential campaign, currently “in turmoil,” features the First Lady of Florida, Casey DeSantis, issuing a warning: “They’re coming after our children.”

The ad never quite says who is coming after the kids, but the video (below) includes clips of President Joe Biden and former Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of the war on COVID and the now-retired Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

While it was first released over the summer, it received little attention. Casey DeSantis on Friday reposted her “Mamas for DeSantis” ad. It comes in the wake of the alleged ménage à trois sex scandal involving an unnamed woman who has accused Christian Ziegler, the head of the Florida Republican Party of rape. His wife, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler, who reportedly confirmed the consensual three-way sexual relationship, is Casey DeSantis’ “best friend,” according to Florida Politics publisher Peter Schorsch.

“In America, we’ve witnessed a lot and put up with enough,” Casey DeSantis says in a voiceover at the start of the two-and-a-half minute video.

“We’ve been forced into silence,” she charges, amid a baby crying and a COVID mask being put over a child’s face. “Into compliance.”

“Told that we must ‘trust the science,'” DeSantis continues, in a direct attack on Dr. Fauci, showing him speaking during the height of COVID in the Trump administration.

READ MORE: ‘Significant and Imminent Threat’: Trump Gag Order Largely Upheld by Appeals Court

And in an attack on LGBTQ children and adults, she says: “We’ve been told that we must deny truth. Back down. And look the other way.”

“Enough is enough. When you come after our kids, we fight back. Because there’s nothing we won’t do to protect our children,” she says.

Seconds later, the video shows President Joe Biden declaring, “Our nation’s children are all our children.”

“We will not allow you to exploit their innocence to advance your agenda. We are no longer silent,” Casey DeSantis declares. “We are united. We have finally found our fighter.”

Casey DeSantis praises her husband, saying he will do for America what he did for Florida: “Schools: opened. Parents’ rights: defended. School choice: universal. Critical race theory: prohibited. DEI: stopped. Child mutilation: illegal. Girls’ sports: saved. Communities: protected. Our economy: growing. And freedom: guaranteed.”

READ MORE: ‘Dystopian’: Potential Trump Cabinet Picks Send ‘5-Alarm’ Shock Waves of Terror

In the section where President Biden says, “Our nation’s children are all our children,” Casey DeSantis doesn’t explain that those words came from a White House celebration honoring Teachers of The Year from across the country. The President was praising an Oklahoma Teacher of the Year whose district includes students who speak 62 different languages, so she had to work hard to ensure everyone felt included. She had said, “There’s no such thing as someone else’s child.”

Nor did DeSantis acknowledge that Governor DeSantis’ performance for children has been poor.

The Florida Policy Institute, which says it is “an independent, non-partisan, and non-profit organization,” in September warned “368,728 youth aged 20 and younger” have been cut from Medicaid. “Because Florida has not expanded Medicaid, the vast majority of those losing insurance during this time have been children, parents, young adults, and new mothers.”

Florida ranks 35th in child well-being (with 1 being the best), according WUSF, citing the Kids Count Databook from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Some critics on social media blasted Casey DeSantis’ remarks.

“Republicans refused to extend child tax credits that pulled 2 million children out of poverty. They resist the idea of free school lunches. Yet they come up with bullshit about their opponents ‘coming after our children.’ Yes, we’re coming after them, to give them a sandwich,” wrote former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob.

READ MORE: Jobs Report Forces Fox News to Admit Biden Economy ‘A Lot Stronger Than Anybody Understands’

Watch the Casey DeSantis video below or at this link.

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‘Significant and Imminent Threat’: Trump Gag Order Largely Upheld by Appeals Court

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A Washington, D.C. federal appeals court Friday afternoon largely upheld and reinstated U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s very narrow and limited gag order on Donald Trump for his trial on charges related to his alleged efforts to subvert the U.S. Constitution and overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“We agree with the district court that some aspects of Mr. Trump’s public statements pose a significant and imminent threat to the fair and orderly adjudication of the ongoing criminal proceeding, warranting a speech-constraining protective order,” reads Judge Patricia Millett unanimous three-judge panel ruling, posted by Lawfare’s Anna Bower. “The district court’s order, however, sweeps in more protected speech than is necessary. For that reason, we affirm the district court’s order in part and vacate it in part.”

The judges upheld the gag order “to the extent it prohibits all parties and their counsel from making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding.”

READ MORE: Jobs Report Forces Fox News to Admit Biden Economy ‘A Lot Stronger Than Anybody Understands’

They also upheld the gag order “to the extent it prohibits all parties and their counsel from making or directing others to make public statements about (1) counsel in the case other than the Special Counsel, (2) members of the court’s staff and counsel’s staffs, or (3) the family members of any counsel or staff member—if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or to cause others to materially interfere with, counsel’s or staff’s work in this criminal case, or with the knowledge that such interference is highly likely to result.”

The judges removed from the gag order “speech beyond those specified categories.”

“We do not allow such an order lightly,” the judges added. “But Mr. Trump is also an indicted criminal defendant, and he must stand trial in a courtroom under the same procedures that govern all other criminal defendants.”

Bower explains, “Chutkan’s order would have prohibited statements that refer to special counsel Jack Smith as a ‘thug’ or ‘deranged.’ But the appeals court order does not apply to speech about the special counsel himself.”

CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane sums up the ruling: “Much of the gag order in Donald Trump’s 2020 election conspiracy criminal case in DC is *REINSTATED*.”

READ MORE: Peter Doocy Admits No ‘Concrete Evidence Joe Biden Personally Profited’ From Hunter’s Business

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Peter Doocy Admits No ‘Concrete Evidence Joe Biden Personally Profited’ From Hunter’s Business

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In a report focused on House Republicans’ plan to vote on a resolution to open an official impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy told viewers there is no evidence of impeachable offenses.

“The House Oversight Committee has been at this for years, and they have so far not been able to provide any concrete evidence that Joe Biden personally profited from his son Hunter’s overseas business but they are going to try again with this impeachment inquiry set to start next week,” Doocy, who often criticizes President Biden in White House press briefings, said Friday on Fox News Business.

Other news outlets this week have also stressed Republicans have come up empty-handed.

The right-leaning news outlet The Hill, reporting on the resolution Thursday, noted Republicans’ current investigation “has struggled to connect President Biden to the activities of his son, and they’ve failed to prove their most salacious allegation — and the one that would be most key for impeachment: that the president accepted a bribe.”

READ MORE: Jobs Report Forces Fox News to Admit Biden Economy ‘A Lot Stronger Than Anybody Understands’

One of the main pillars of Republicans’ allegations against President Biden, the “narrative that President Biden pushed Ukraine to fire its prosecutor to help his son, who served on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burimsa, has largely been refuted,” The Hill also reported.

“Republicans have engaged in wide-ranging inquiry into Mr. Biden for months,” The New York Times reported Tuesday, “hunting for evidence to back up their allegations that he corruptly profited from his family members’ overseas business dealings and accepted bribes. To date, they have failed to deliver compelling evidence to back up their boldest claims.”

Watch Doocy below or at this link.

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