Inside The Troubling History of Chris Sevier, the Anti-Gay Activist Who Wants to Marry His Laptop
You may have heard the news that a U.S. District Court in Utah just dismissed a lawsuit by a man looking to marry a laptop because, among other reasons, his laptop wasn’t 15 years old and thus hadn’t reached the legal age of consent. Judges ultimately dismissed the lawsuit because its plaintiff had only filed it as a way to challenge the 2015 Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in the U.S..
Though the laptop-lover has promised to appeal the ruling, he’s actually an anti-gay activist named Chris Sevier who has filed similar lawsuits in Florida and Texas.
In a 2016 interview, Sevier admitted that he doesn’t actually want to marry a laptop. His larger point is that same-sex marriage is as “unnatural” as marrying a machine or a barnyard animal.
He said, “The state is not doing anyone any favors by encouraging people to live that lifestyle,” and he added that he’s OK with “destroying marriages and families across the country” as long as the law continues to discriminate against same-sex couples.
A closer look at Sevier’s history shows a record of frivolous lawsuits, anti-porn bills, stalker behavior aimed at corrosively dehumanizing gay people, wasting taxpayer money and influencing dangerous conservative legislators.
In February 2018, he co-wrote a bill in South Carolina that would’ve labeled all same-sex marriages as “parody marriages” because gays are all members of a secret shadow religion called Secular Humanism. Yes, really. He helped co-write a similar bill in Wyoming that same month.
In July 2017, he tried suing four Democrat U.S. Representatives for flying rainbow flags in the hallways outside of their congressional offices. In the same lawsuit, he asked judges to overturn the 2003 Supreme Court ruling knocking down sodomy laws nationwide, and he compared gay people to “polygamists, zoophiles… and machinists” (i.e. people like who who are supposedly attracted to machines).
In December 2016, he co-authored a bill in a dozen states that would force all manufacturers of computers, smart phones and other internet-capable devices to install active software designed to block “obscene” content, software that consumers would have to pay $20 to the state to remove. Opponents to his bill called it a violation of free speech that would mostly burden poorer computer users and create a public registry of porn viewers.
In July 2013, he sued Apple computers for “not stopping him from accessing the porn that he says destroyed his marriage.”
In June and September 2013, he was arrested on charges of stalking and harassing country music star John Rich and a 17-year-old girl working at a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream parlor. That same year, he sued the TV network A&E, GLAAD and Barack Obama for dropping Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson over his anti-gay remarks.
Separate from his frivolous lawsuits and bills, Chris Sevier also has a depressing legal history involving his estranged family.
Basically, in 2010, he tried to abduct his infant son during a supervised visit with his in-laws and was arrested for assaulting his father-in-law. His seven-month old son was also injured during the fight. Sevier was found guilty of misdemeanor assault and given 58 days in jail.
Afterwards, his wife got a restraining order against him, which he violated. After that (and failing to pay child support), he was charged with contempt of court and had a warrant issued for his arrest for failing to address the issue in court.
While it’s tempting to laugh at and hate on Sevier — he has never won a single case and doesn’t even appear to have a license to practice law — conservative lawmakers aren’t laughing at him. They’re working with him, and they seem content to continue doing so, even despite Sevier’s toxic public record.
