Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf
Page Number: 3

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

3 

Syllabus 

at 654. 

These cases illustrate that the First Amendment protects an indi-
vidual’s right to speak his mind regardless of whether the government
considers  his  speech  sensible  and  well  intentioned  or  deeply  “mis-
guided,” Hurley, 515 U. S., at 574, and likely to cause “anguish” or “in-
calculable grief,” Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U. S. 443, 456.  Generally, too, 
the government may not compel a person to speak its own preferred 
messages.  See Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School 
Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 505.  Pp. 6–9.

(b) Applying  these  principles  to  the  parties’  stipulated  facts,  the 
Court  agrees  with  the  Tenth  Circuit  that  the  wedding  websites  Ms. 
Smith  seeks  to  create  qualify  as  pure  speech  protected  by  the  First 
Amendment under this Court’s precedents.  Ms. Smith’s websites will 
express  and  communicate  ideas—namely,  those  that  “celebrate  and
promote  the  couple’s  wedding  and  unique  love  story”  and  those  that 
“celebrat[e] and promot[e]” what Ms. Smith understands to be a mar-
riage.  Speech  conveyed  over  the  internet,  like  all  other  manner  of 
speech,  qualifies  for  the  First  Amendment’s  protections.    And  the 
Court  agrees  with  the  Tenth  Circuit  that  the  wedding  websites  Ms. 
Smith seeks to create involve her speech, a conclusion supported by the
parties’  stipulations,  including  that  Ms.  Smith  intends  to  produce  a
final story for each couple using her own words and original artwork. 
While  Ms.  Smith’s  speech  may  combine  with  the  couple’s  in  a  final 
product,  an  individual  “does  not  forfeit  constitutional  protection 
simply by combining multifarious voices” in a single communication. 
Hurley, 515 U. S., at 569. 

Ms.  Smith  seeks  to  engage  in  protected  First  Amendment  speech; 
Colorado seeks to compel speech she does not wish to provide.  As the 
Tenth Circuit observed, if Ms. Smith offers wedding websites celebrat-
ing marriages she endorses, the State intends to compel her to create
custom  websites  celebrating  other  marriages  she  does  not.    6  F. 4th 
1160, 1178.  Colorado seeks to compel this speech in order to “excis[e] 
certain ideas or viewpoints from the public dialogue.”  Turner Broad-
casting  System,  Inc.  v.  FCC,  512  U. S.  633,  642.    Indeed,  the  Tenth 
Circuit  recognized  that  the  coercive  “[e]liminati[on]”  of  dissenting 
ideas about marriage constitutes Colorado’s “very purpose” in seeking 
to apply its law to Ms. Smith.  6 F. 4th, at 1178.  But while the Tenth 
Circuit  thought  that  Colorado  could  compel  speech  from  Ms.  Smith 
consistent with the Constitution, this Court’s First Amendment prec-
edents teach otherwise.  In Hurley, Dale, and Barnette, the Court found 
that governments impermissibly compelled speech in violation of the
First Amendment when they tried to force speakers to accept a mes-
sage  with  which  they  disagreed.    Here,  Colorado  seeks  to  put  Ms. 
Smith to a similar choice.  If she wishes to speak, she must either speak