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Rh most people either because they already have them or do not need them; these are protections against exclusion from an almost limitless number of transactions and endeavors that constitute ordinary civic life in a free society.” Romer v. Evans, 517 U. S. 620, 631 (1996). LGBT people do not seek any special treatment. All they seek is to exist in public. To inhabit public spaces on the same terms and conditions as everyone else.

Yet for as long as public accommodations laws have been around, businesses have sought exemptions from them. The civil rights and women’s liberation eras are prominent examples of this. Backlashes to race and sex equality gave rise to legal claims of rights to discriminate, including claims based on First Amendment freedoms of expression and association. This Court was unwavering in its rejection of those claims, as invidious discrimination “has never been accorded affirmative constitutional protections.” Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U. S. 455, 470 (1973). In particular, the refusal to deal with or to serve a class of people is not an expressive interest protected by the First Amendment.

Opponents of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 objected that the law would force business owners to defy their beliefs. Cf. . They argued that the Act would deny them “any freedom to speak or to act on the basis of their religious convictions or their deep-rooted preferences for associating or not associating with certain classifications of people.” 110 Cong. Rec. 7778 (1964) (remarks of Sen. Tower). Congress rejected those arguments. Title II of the Act, in particular, did not invade “rights of privacy [or] of free association,” Congress concluded, because the establishments covered by the law were “those regularly held open to the