Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-123_g3bi.pdf
Page Number: 15.0

Cite as:  593 U. S. ____ (2021) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 

agencies  are  public  accommodations  and  therefore  forbid-
den from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation 
when certifying foster parents. 

CSS counters that “foster care has never been treated as 
a ‘public accommodation’ in Philadelphia.”  Brief for Peti-
tioners 13.  In any event, CSS adds, the ordinance cannot 
qualify as generally applicable because the City allows ex-
ceptions  to  it  for  secular  reasons  despite  denying  one  for 
CSS’s  religious  exercise.    But  that  constitutional  issue 
arises only if the ordinance applies to CSS in the first place.
We conclude that it does not because foster care agencies do
not  act  as  public  accommodations  in  performing  certifica-
tions. 

The  ordinance  defines  a  public  accommodation  in  rele-
vant  part  as  “[a]ny  place,  provider  or  public  conveyance, 
whether licensed or not, which solicits or accepts the pat-
ronage or trade of the public or whose goods, services, facil-
ities,  privileges,  advantages  or  accommodations  are  ex-
tended,  offered,  sold,  or  otherwise  made  available  to  the 
public.”  §9–1102(1)(w).  Certification is not “made available 
to the public” in the usual sense of the words.  To make a 
service  “available”  means  to  make  it  “accessible,  obtaina-
ble.”  Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 84 (11th ed.
2005);  see  also  1  Oxford  English  Dictionary  812  (2d  ed.
1989)  (“capable  of  being  made  use  of,  at  one’s  disposal, 
within one’s reach”).  Related state law illustrates the same 
point.  A Pennsylvania antidiscrimination statute similarly
defines a public accommodation as an accommodation that 
is “open to, accepts or solicits the patronage of the general
public.”  Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 43, §954(l) (Purdon Cum. Supp.
2009).  It fleshes out that definition with examples like ho-
tels,  restaurants,  drug  stores,  swimming  pools,  barber-
shops, and public conveyances.  Ibid.  The “common theme” 
is that a public accommodation must “provide a benefit to
the general public allowing individual members of the gen-