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303 CREATIVE LLC v. ELENIS 

Opinion of the Court 

and bisexual individuals in their event.  The group argued 
that Massachusetts’s public accommodations statute enti-
tled it to participate in the parade as a matter of law.  Id., 
at 560–561.  Lower courts agreed.  Id., at 561–566.  But this 
Court reversed.  Id., at 581.  Whatever state law may de-
mand,  this  Court  explained,  the  parade  was  constitution-
ally protected speech and requiring the veterans to include 
voices they wished to exclude would impermissibly require 
them to “alter the expressive content of their parade.”  Id., 
at 572–573.  The veterans’ choice of what to say (and not
say)  might  have  been  unpopular,  but  they  had  a  First 
Amendment  right  to  present  their  message  undiluted  by
views they did not share. 
  Then there is Boy Scouts of America v. Dale.  In that case, 
the  Boy  Scouts  excluded  James  Dale,  an  assistant  scout-
master, from membership after learning he was gay.  Mr. 
Dale argued that New Jersey’s public accommodations law 
required the Scouts to reinstate him.  530 U. S., at 644–645. 
The New Jersey Supreme Court sided with Mr. Dale, id., at 
646–647,  but  again  this  Court  reversed,  id.,  at  661.  The 
decision to exclude Mr. Dale may not have implicated pure
speech, but this Court held that the Boy Scouts “is an ex-
pressive  association”  entitled  to  First  Amendment  protec-
tion.  Id., at 656.  And, the Court found, forcing the Scouts 
to include Mr. Dale would “interfere with [its] choice not to
propound a point of view contrary to its beliefs.”  Id., at 654. 
As these cases illustrate, the First Amendment protects
an  individual’s  right  to  speak  his  mind  regardless  of
whether the government considers his speech sensible and 
well intentioned or deeply “misguided,” Hurley, 515 U. S., 
at 574, and likely to cause “anguish” or “incalculable grief,” 
Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U. S. 443, 456 (2011).  Equally, the 
First  Amendment  protects  acts  of  expressive  association. 
See, e.g., Dale, 530 U. S., at 647–656; Hurley, 515 U. S., at 
568–570, 579.  Generally, too, the government may not com-
pel  a  person  to  speak  its  own  preferred  messages.  See