Opinion of the Court
topic somehow implicates a customer’s statutorily protected trait. 6 F. 4th, at 1198 (Tymkovich, C. J., dissenting). Taken seriously, that principle would allow the government to force all manner of artists, speechwriters, and others whose services involve speech to speak what they do not believe on pain of penalty. The government could require “an unwilling Muslim movie director to make a film with a Zionist message,” or “an atheist muralist to accept a commission celebrating Evangelical zeal,” so long as they would make films or murals for other members of the public with different messages. Id., at 1199. Equally, the government could force a male website designer married to another man to design websites for an organization that advocates against same-sex marriage. See Brief for Petitioners 26–27. Countless other creative professionals, too, could be forced to choose between remaining silent, producing speech that violates their beliefs, or speaking their minds and incurring sanctions for doing so. See, e.g., Brief for Creative Professionals et al. as Amici Curiae 5–10; Brief for First Amendment Scholars as Amici Curiae 19–22. As our precedents recognize, the First Amendment tolerates none of that.
In saying this much, we do not question the vital role public accommodations laws play in realizing the civil rights of all Americans. This Court has recognized that governments in this country have a “compelling interest” in eliminating discrimination in places of public accommodation. Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609, 628 (1984); see also Hurley, 515 U. S., at 571–572. This Court has recognized, too, that public accommodations laws “vindicate the deprivation of personal dignity that surely accompanies denials of equal access to public establishments.” Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 250 (1964) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also, e.g., Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294 (1964); Newman v.
