Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf
Page Number: 21.0

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

15 

Opinion of the Court 

1180.  In  some  sense, of  course,  her  voice  is unique;  so  is 
everyone’s.  But  that  hardly  means  a  State  may  coopt  an
individual’s voice for its own purposes.  In Hurley, the vet-
erans had an “enviable” outlet for speech; after all, their pa-
rade was a notable and singular event.  515 U. S., at 560, 
577–578.  In Dale, the Boy Scouts offered what some might
consider a unique experience.  530 U. S., at 649–650.  But 
in both cases this Court held that the State could not use 
its  public  accommodations  statute  to  deny  speakers  the
right “to choose the content of [their] own message[s].”  Hur-
ley, 515 U. S., at 573; see Dale, 530 U. S., at 650–656.  Were 
the rule otherwise, the better the artist, the finer the writer, 
the more unique his talent, the more easily his voice could
be  conscripted  to  disseminate  the  government’s  preferred 
messages.  That would not respect the First  Amendment;
more nearly, it would spell its demise. 

IV 
Before  us,  Colorado  appears  to  distance  itself  from  the
Tenth  Circuit’s  reasoning.    Now,  the  State  seems  to 
acknowledge that the First Amendment does forbid it from 
coercing Ms. Smith to create websites endorsing same-sex
marriage or expressing any other message with which she 
disagrees.  See Brief for Respondents 12 (disclaiming any 
interest in “interfer[ing] with [Ms. Smith’s] choice to offer
only websites of [her] own design”); see also Brief for United
States as Amicus Curiae 19 (conceding that “constitutional
concerns” would arise if Colorado “require[d] petitione[r] to
design a website” that she “would not create or convey for
any client”).  Instead, Colorado devotes most of its efforts to 
advancing an alternative theory for affirmance. 

The State’s alternative theory runs this way.  To comply
with Colorado law, the State says, all Ms. Smith must do is
repurpose  websites  she  will  create  to  celebrate  marriages
she  does  endorse  for  marriages  she  does  not.  She  sells  a 
product  to  some,  the  State  reasons,  so  she  must  sell  the