Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-111_new2_22p3.pdf
Page Number: 50

Cite as:  584 U. S. ____ (2018) 

13 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

restriction  is  to  shield  the  sensibilities  of  listeners,  the 
general rule is that the right of expression prevails”).  “[A]
speech  burden  based  on  audience  reactions  is  simply 
government  hostility  . . .  in  a  different  guise.”    Matal  v. 
Tam, 582 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (KENNEDY, J., concurring in
part and concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 4). 

Consider  what  Phillips  actually  said  to  the  individual
respondents in this case.  After sitting down with them for 
a  consultation,  Phillips  told  the  couple,  “ ‘I’ll  make  your
birthday cakes, shower cakes, sell you cookies and brown­
ies, I just don’t make cakes for same sex weddings.’ ”  App. 
168.  It is hard to see how this statement stigmatizes gays
and lesbians more than blocking them from marching in a
city  parade,  dismissing  them  from  the  Boy  Scouts,  or
subjecting them to signs that say “God Hates Fags”—all of 
which  this  Court  has  deemed  protected  by  the  First 
Amendment.  See  Hurley,  supra,  at  574–575;  Dale,  530 
U. S., at 644; Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U. S. 443, 448 (2011).
Moreover, it is also hard to see how Phillips’ statement is
worse  than  the  racist,  demeaning,  and  even  threatening
speech  toward  blacks  that  this  Court  has  tolerated  in
previous decisions.  Concerns about “dignity” and “stigma” 
did not carry the day when this Court affirmed the right of
white  supremacists  to  burn  a  25-foot  cross,  Virginia  v. 
Black,  538  U. S.  343  (2003);  conduct  a  rally  on  Martin
Luther  King  Jr.’s  birthday,  Forsyth  County  v.  Nationalist 
Movement, 505 U. S. 123 (1992); or circulate a film featur­
ing hooded Klan members who were brandishing weapons 
and  threatening  to  “ ‘Bury  the  niggers,’ ”  Brandenburg  v. 
Ohio, 395 U. S. 444, 446, n. 1 (1969) (per curiam).

Nor does the fact that this Court has now decided Ober-
gefell  v.  Hodges,  576  U. S.  ___  (2015),  somehow  diminish 
Phillips’  right  to  free  speech.  “It  is  one  thing  . . .  to  con­
clude  that  the  Constitution  protects  a  right  to  same-sex
marriage;  it  is  something  else  to  portray  everyone  who 
does  not  share  [that  view]  as  bigoted”  and  unentitled  to