Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-177_b97c.pdf
Page Number: 26.0

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

13 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

onlookers would understand GLIB as “contribut[ing] some-
thing  to”  the  parade’s  “common  theme,”  the  order  “essen-
tially requir[ed]” the Veterans Council “to alter the expres-
sive content of their parade.”   Id., at 572–573, 576.  That 
violated the First Amendment.  Id., at 573. 

The First Amendment violation in this case is even more 
apparent.  In  Hurley,  the  Veterans  Council  had  merely 
“combin[ed] multifarious voices” of disparate groups with-
out  bothering  to  “isolate  an  exact  message,”  yet  the  First
Amendment  protected  its  message  from  government-
compelled distortion all the same.  Id., at 569.  Respondents 
in  this  case  have  done  the  Veterans  Council  one  better. 
They have carefully constructed a cogent message and mar-
shaled their clearly identified foreign affiliates to express it
across the globe.  See supra, at 7–8, 10. 
  Furthermore,  in  Hurley  we  could  only  speculate  about
what  GLIB’s  exact  message  was  and  why  the  Veterans 
Council did not want to be associated with it.  See 515 U. S., 
at 574–575.  But here we know exactly what the challenged 
message  is  (“a  policy  explicitly  opposing  prostitution  and 
sex trafficking”) and why respondents don’t want to be as-
sociated with it (the message, among other things, purport-
edly  “ ‘stigmatizes  one  of  the  very  groups  whose  trust  [re-
spondents]  must  earn  to  conduct  effective  HIV/AIDS
prevention’ ”).  22 U. S. C. §7631(f ); Brief for Respondents 
11.  For that reason as well, the First Amendment injury in 
this case is open, obvious, and unusually well defined. 

True, Hurley and our other speech-misattribution cases
dealt with a speaker complaining about being forced to af-
filiate  with  someone  else’s  speech,  rather  than  (as  here)
their pre-existing affiliate being forced to speak.  Cf. ante, 
at 6.  But that factual distinction makes no constitutional 
difference.  From a First Amendment perspective, the latter
situation is just as bad or even worse, not better. 

Consider Hurley again.  If, rather than requiring the Vet-
erans Council to let GLIB march while carrying its banner,