Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf
Page Number: 28

22 

303 CREATIVE LLC v. ELENIS 

Opinion of the Court 

by the First Amendment can sometimes raise difficult ques-
tions.  But this case presents no complication of that kind.
The parties have stipulated that Ms. Smith seeks to engage 
in  expressive  activity.    And  the  Tenth  Circuit  has  recog-
nized her services involve “pure speech.”  See supra, at 6, 9. 
Nothing the dissent says can alter this—nor can it displace
the First Amendment protections that follow. 

The  dissent’s  treatment  of  precedent  parallels  its  han-
dling  of  the  facts.  Take  its  remarkable  suggestion  that  a 
government  forcing  an  individual  to  create  speech  on 
weighty issues with which she disagrees—all, as the Tenth 
Circuit found, with the goal of “[e]liminating” views it does 
not share, 6 F. 4th, at 1178—only “incidental[ly]” burdens
First Amendment liberties.  Post, at 26–35.  Far from em-
bracing a notion like that, our cases have rejected it time 
after time—including in the context of public accommoda-
tions laws.  See Parts II–IV, supra; FAIR, 547 U. S., at 61– 
64 (no government may affect a “speaker’s own message” by
“forc[ing]” her to “accommodate” views she does not hold); 
Hurley, 515 U. S., at 563, 566 (using a public accommoda-
tions  law  to  compel  parade  organizers  to  include  speech
they  did  not  believe  was  no  mere  “ ‘incidental’ ”  infringe-
ment on First Amendment rights); Dale, 530 U. S., at 659 
(employing a public accommodations law to require the Boy
Scouts to alter their admissions policies had more than “an 
incidental effect on protected speech”).6 

—————— 

6 The  dissent  observes  that  public  accommodations  laws  may  some-
times touch on speech incidentally as they work to ensure ordinary, non-
expressive goods and services are sold on equal terms.  Cf. post, at 24–27 
(citing  Sorrell  v.  IMS  Health  Inc.,  564  U. S.  552  (2011);  Rumsfeld  v. 
FAIR, 547 U. S. 47 (2006); United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367 (1968)). 
But as Hurley observed, there is nothing “incidental” about an infringe-
ment  on  speech  when  a  public  accommodations  law  is  applied  “pecu-
liar[ly]”  to  compel  expressive  activity.  Hurley  v.  Irish-American  Gay, 
Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U. S. 557, 572 (1995).