Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf
Page Number: 62.0

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303 CREATIVE LLC v. ELENIS 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

did in FAIR.  Instead, the proper focus is on the character 
of state action and its relationship to expression.  Because 
Colorado seeks to apply CADA only to the refusal to provide
same-sex couples the full and equal enjoyment of the com-
pany’s  publicly  available  services,  so  that  the  company’s 
speech “is only ‘compelled’ if, and to the extent,” the com-
pany chooses to offer “such speech” to the public, any bur-
den  on  speech  is  “plainly  incidental”  to  a  content-neutral 
regulation of conduct.  Ibid. 

The majority attempts to distinguish this clear holding of 
FAIR by suggesting that the compelled speech in FAIR was 
“incidental”  because  it  was  “logistical”  (e.g.,  “The  U. S. 
Army recruiter will meet interested students in Room 123 
at 11 a.m.”).  Ante, at 18 (internal quotation marks omitted).
This attempt fails twice over.  First, the law schools in FAIR 
alleged that the Solomon Amendment required them to cre-
ate and disseminate speech propagating the military’s mes-
sage, which they deeply objected to, and to include military
speakers in on- and off-campus forums (if the schools pro-
vided  equally  favorable  services  to  other  recruiters).    547 
U. S., at 60–61; App. 27 and Brief for Respondents 5–8 in 
Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, 
Inc.,  O. T.  2005,  No.  04–1152.    The  majority  simply  skips 
over the Court’s key reasoning for why any speech compul-
sion was nevertheless “incidental” to the Amendment’s reg-
ulation  of  conduct:  It  would  occur  only  “if,  and  to  the  ex-
tent,” the regulated entity provided “such speech” to others. 
FAIR, 547 U. S., at 62.  Likewise in O’Brien, the reason the 
burden on O’Brien’s expression was incidental was not be-
cause his message was factual or uncontroversial.  But cf. 
ante, at 19.  O’Brien burned his draft card to send a political 
message, and the burden on his expression was substantial. 
Still, the burden was “incidental” because it was ancillary 
to a regulation that did not aim at expression.  391 U. S., at 
377.