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303 CREATIVE LLC v. ELENIS 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

“What a difference five years makes.”  Carson v. Makin, 
596 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting) (slip
op., at 5).  And not just at the Court.  Around the country,
there has been a backlash to the movement for liberty and
equality  for  gender  and  sexual  minorities.  New  forms  of 
inclusion have been met with reactionary exclusion.  This 
is heartbreaking.  Sadly, it is also familiar.  When the civil 
rights  and  women’s  rights  movements  sought  equality  in 
public life, some public establishments refused.  Some even 
claimed,  based  on  sincere  religious  beliefs,  constitutional 
rights to discriminate.  The brave Justices who once sat on 
this Court decisively rejected those claims. 

Now the Court faces a similar test.  A business open to
the public seeks to deny gay and lesbian customers the full 
and  equal  enjoyment  of  its  services  based  on  the  owner’s
religious  belief  that  same-sex  marriages  are  “false.”    The 
business  argues,  and  a  majority  of  the  Court agrees,  that 
because  the  business  offers  services  that  are  customized 
and expressive, the Free Speech Clause of the First Amend-
ment shields the business from a generally applicable law 
that prohibits discrimination in the sale of publicly availa-
ble goods and services.  That is wrong.  Profoundly wrong.
As I will explain, the law in question targets conduct, not 
speech,  for  regulation,  and  the  act  of  discrimination  has 
never  constituted  protected  expression  under  the  First 
Amendment.  Our Constitution contains no right to refuse
service to a disfavored group.  I dissent. 

I 
A 
A “public accommodations law” is a law that guarantees
to  every  person  the  full  and  equal  enjoyment  of  places  of
public accommodation without unjust discrimination.  The 
American  people,  through  their  elected  representatives, 
have  enacted  such  laws  at  all  levels  of  government:  The 
federal  Civil  Rights  Act  of  1964  and  the  Americans  with