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6 Grief stricken, and now isolated and humiliated, the family desperately searches for another funeral home that will take the body. They eventually find one more than 70 miles away. See First Amended Complaint in Zawadski v. Brewer Funeral Services, Inc., No. 55CI1–17–cv–00019 (C. C. Pearl River Cty., Miss., Mar. 7, 2017), pp. 4–7. This ostracism, this otherness, is among the most distressing feelings that can be felt by our social species. K. Williams, Ostracism, 58 Ann. Rev. Psychology 425, 432–435 (2007).

Preventing the “unique evils” caused by “acts of invidious discrimination in the distribution of publicly available goods, services, and other advantages” is a compelling state interest “of the highest order.” Roberts, 468 U. S., at 624, 628; see Board of Directors of Rotary Int’l v. Rotary Club of Duarte, 481 U. S. 537, 549 (1987). Moreover, a law that prohibits only such acts by businesses open to the public is narrowly tailored to achieve that compelling interest. The law “responds precisely to the substantive problem which legitimately concerns the State”: the harm from status-based discrimination in the public marketplace. Roberts, 468 U. S., at 629 (internal quotation marks omitted).

This last aspect of a public accommodations law deserves special emphasis: The law regulates only businesses that choose to sell goods or services “to the general public,” e.g., Va. Code Ann. §2.2–3904, or “to the public,” e.g., Mich. Comp. Laws §37.2301. Some public accommodations laws,