515 U.S. 557, 115 S. Ct. 2338, 132 L. Ed. 2d 487 (1995)
The South Boston Allied War Veterans Council, an unincorporated association of individuals elected from South Boston veterans groups, has organized the annual St. Patrick's Day-Evacuation Day Parade since 1947.1 Mayor James Michael Curley granted the Council authority to organize and conduct the parade. Every year since then the Council has applied for and received the sole permit for the event.2 The parade has at times included as many as 20,000 marchers and drawn up to 1 million spectators.3 No other applicant has ever applied for that permit.4
In 1992 gay, lesbian, and bisexual descendants of Irish immigrants joined together with other supporters to form the Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, known as GLIB.5 GLIB sought to march in the parade to express pride in their Irish heritage as openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals.6 The group also wanted to demonstrate that such men and women exist among those descended from Irish immigrants and to express solidarity with similar groups seeking to march in New York's parade.7 The Council denied GLIB's application.8 GLIB obtained a state-court order and marched uneventfully among the 10,000 participants and 750,000 spectators that year.9
In 1993 the Council again refused GLIB's application.10 GLIB and some of its members sued the Council, its leader John J. Hurley, and the City of Boston.11 The suit alleged violations of the Massachusetts public accommodations statute, which prohibits any distinction on account of sexual orientation in places of public accommodation.12 The state trial court found that the parade had traveled the same basic route for at least the past 47 years.13 The court also found that the Council had no written criteria and employed no particular procedures for admission.14 The Council had occasionally admitted groups that simply showed up and did not generally inquire into applicants' messages.15 The parade contained an eclectic variety of patriotic, commercial, political, moral, artistic, religious, athletic, public service, trade union, and eleemosynary themes.16
The trial court concluded that the parade was a public accommodation because of the lack of genuine selectivity in choosing participants.17 It found that GLIB had been excluded because of its members' sexual orientation.18 The court ordered that GLIB participate on the same terms as other groups.19 The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed the trial court's findings that the parade lacked any specific expressive purpose and that exclusion rested on sexual orientation.20
The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to review petitioners' claim that the state courts' application of the public accommodations law violated their First Amendment rights.21
Whether Massachusetts may require private citizens who organize a parade to include among the marchers a group imparting a message the organizers do not wish to convey?22
The First Amendment prohibits the government from compelling private speakers organizing a parade to include among the marchers a group imparting a message the organizers do not wish to convey.23 A speaker has autonomy to choose the content of his own message.24 A speaker may decide what to say and what to leave unsaid.25
No. The principle that a speaker has autonomy to choose the content of his own message applies directly to the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council.26 The Council is the private organizer that selects contingents for the expressive parade.27 The state courts' application of the public accommodations law forced inclusion of the GLIB contingent carrying its own banner.28 This inclusion would alter the Council's expression by suggesting that people of GLIB members' sexual orientations have a claim to unqualified social acceptance.29
The parade constitutes protected expression.30 Marchers make collective points through costumes, uniforms, flags, banners, and music to spectators along the route.31 The Council's selection of units receives the same protection as a newspaper's editorial choices or a cable operator's programming selections.32 This compelled inclusion violates the First Amendment principle that the government may not require a speaker to propound a message with which the speaker disagrees.33
Massachusetts may not require private citizens who organize a parade to include among the marchers a group imparting a message the organizers do not wish to convey, because such compulsion violates the First Amendment.34