Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf
Page Number: 63

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

31 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

Second,  the  majority  completely  ignores  the  categorical 
nature of the exemption claimed by petitioners.  Petitioners 
maintain, as they have throughout this litigation, that they 
will  refuse  to  create  any  wedding  website  for  a  same-sex 
couple.  Even an announcement of the time and place of a 
wedding  (similar  to  the  majority’s  example  from  FAIR)
abridges petitioners’ freedom of speech, they claim, because 
“the announcement of the wedding itself is a concept that 
[Smith] believes to be false.”  Tr. of Oral Arg. 41.  Indeed, 
petitioners  here  concede  that  if  a  same-sex  couple  came
across an opposite-sex wedding website created by the com-
pany  and  requested  an  identical  website,  with  only  the
names and date of the wedding changed, petitioners would 
refuse.  Id., at 37–38.11  That is status-based discrimination, 
plain and simple.

Oblivious to this fact, the majority insists that petitioners
discriminate based on message, not status.  The company,
says the majority, will not sell same-sex wedding websites 
to anyone.  Ante, at 17.  It will sell only opposite-sex wed-
ding  websites;  that  is  its  service.  Petitioners,  however, 
“cannot define their service as ‘opposite-sex wedding [web-
sites]’  any  more  than  a  hotel  can  recast  its  services  as 
‘whites-only lodgings.’ ”  Telescope Media Group v. Lucero, 

—————— 

11 Because  petitioners  have  never  sold  a  wedding  website  to  anyone,
the record contains only a mockup website.  The mockup confirms what
you  would  expect:  The  website  provides  details  of  the  event,  a  form  to
RSVP, a gift registry, etc.  See App. 51–72.  The customization of these 
elements  pursuant  to  a  content-neutral  regulation  of  conduct  does  not 
unconstitutionally intrude upon any protected expression of the website
designer.  Yet Smith claims a First Amendment right to refuse to provide 
any wedding website for a same-sex couple.  Her claim therefore rests on 
the idea that her act of service is itself a form of protected expression.  In 
granting  Smith’s  claim,  the  majority  collapses  the  distinction  between 
status-based and message-based refusals of service.  The history shows
just how profoundly wrong that is.  See Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U. S. 
160, 176 (1976); Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U. S. 69, 78 (1984); Rob-
erts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609, 622–629 (1984).