Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf
Page Number: 67

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

35 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

require her to stick to her bargain: “The owner who hangs 
a shingle and offers her services to the public cannot retreat 
from the promise of open service; to do so is to offer the pub-
lic marked money.  It is to convey the promise of a free and 
open society and then take the prize away from the despised
few.”  J. Singer, We Don’t Serve Your Kind Here: Public Ac-
commodations and the Mark of Sodom, 95 B. U. L. Rev. 929, 
949 (2015). 

III 
Today is a sad day in American constitutional law and in
the lives of LGBT people.  The Supreme Court of the United 
States declares that a particular kind of business, though 
open  to  the  public,  has  a  constitutional  right  to  refuse  to 
serve members of a protected class.  The Court does so for 
the first time in its history.  By issuing this new license to
discriminate in a case brought by a company that seeks to
deny same-sex couples the full and equal enjoyment of its 
services, the immediate, symbolic effect of the decision is to 
mark gays and lesbians for second-class status.  In this way,
the decision itself inflicts a kind of stigmatic harm, on top 
of any harm caused by denials of service.  The opinion of the
Court is, quite literally, a notice that reads: “Some services 
may be denied to same-sex couples.” 

“The truth is,” these “affronts and denials” “are intensely 
human and personal.”  S. Rep. No. 872, at 15 (internal quo-
tation  marks  omitted).  Sometimes  they  may  “harm  the
physical body, but always they strike at the root of the hu-
man spirit, at the very core of human dignity.”  Ibid.  To see 
how, imagine a same-sex couple browses the public market 
with their child.  The market could be online or in a shop-
ping mall.  Some stores sell products that are customized 
and expressive.  The family sees a notice announcing that 
services will be refused for same-sex weddings.  What mes-
sage does that send?  It sends the message that we live in a
society with social castes.  It says to the child of the same-