Page:303 Creative LLC v. Elenis.pdf/60

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303 CREATIVE LLC v. ELENIS

Sotomayor, J., dissenting

if the company offers its goods or services to the public, it remains free under state law to decide what messages to include or not to include. To repeat (because it escapes the majority): The company can put whatever “harmful” or “low-value” speech it wants on its websites. It can “tell people what they do not want to hear.” Ante, at 25 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). All the company may not do is offer wedding websites to the public yet refuse those same websites to gay and lesbian couples. See Runyon, 427 U. S., at 176 (distinguishing between schools’ ability to express their bigoted view “that racial segregation is desirable” and the schools’ proscribable “practice of excluding racial minorities”).

Another example might help to illustrate the point. A professional photographer is generally free to choose her subjects. She can make a living taking photos of flowers or celebrities. The State does not regulate that choice. If the photographer opens a portrait photography business to the public, however, the business may not deny to any person, because of race, sex, national origin, or other protected characteristic, the full and equal enjoyment of whatever services the business chooses to offer. That is so even though portrait photography services are customized and expressive. If the business offers school photos, it may not deny those services to multiracial children because the owner does not want to create any speech indicating that interracial couples are acceptable. If the business offers corporate headshots, it may not deny those services to women because the owner believes a woman’s place is in the home. And if the business offers passport photos, it may not deny those services to Mexican Americans because the owner opposes immigration from Mexico.

The same is true for sexual-orientation discrimination. If a photographer opens a photo booth outside of city hall and offers to sell newlywed photos captioned with the words “Just Married,” she may not refuse to sell that service to a