Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf
Page Number: 29.0

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

23 

Opinion of the Court 

When it finally gets around to discussing these control-
ling  precedents,  the  dissent  offers  a  wholly  unpersuasive
attempt to distinguish them.  The First Amendment protec-
tions furnished in Barnette, Hurley, and Dale, the dissent 
declares, were limited to schoolchildren and “nonprofit[s],” 
and it is “dispiriting” to think they might also apply to Ms.
Smith’s  “commercial”  activity.    Post,  at  32–35.    But  our 
precedents  endorse  nothing  like  the  limits  the  dissent 
would project on them.  Instead, as we have seen, the First 
Amendment  extends  to  all  persons  engaged  in  expressive
conduct, 
(such  as 
including  those  who  seek  profit 
speechwriters, artists, and website designers).  See supra, 
at 16–17.  If anything is truly dispiriting here, it is the dis-
sent’s failure to take seriously this Court’s enduring com-
mitment  to  protecting  the  speech  rights  of  all  comers,  no 
matter how controversial—or even repugnant—many may 
find the message at hand.

Finally,  the  dissent  comes  out  and  says  what  it  really 
means:  Once  Ms.  Smith  offers  some  speech,  Colorado 
“would  require  [her]  to  create  and  sell  speech,  notwith-
standing [her] sincere objection to doing so”—and the dis-
sent would force her to comply with that demand.  Post, at 
29–30.  Even as it does so, however, the dissent refuses to 
acknowledge  where  its  reasoning  leads.    In  a  world  like 
that, as Chief Judge Tymkovich highlighted, governments 
could force “an unwilling Muslim movie director to make a 

—————— 
The dissent notes that our case law has not sustained every First Amend-
ment  objection  to  an  antidiscrimination  rule,  as  with  a  law  firm  that
sought to exclude women from partnership.  Post, at 19–21 (citing Hishon 
v. King & Spalding, 467 U. S. 69 (1984); Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 
468  U. S.  609  (1984)).    But  the  dissent  disregards  Dale’s  holding  that 
context  matters  and  that  very  different  considerations  come  into  play
when a law is used to force individuals to toe the government’s preferred
line when speaking (or associating to express themselves) on matters of
significance.  Boy  Scouts  of  America  v.  Dale,  530  U. S.  640,  648–653 
(2000).