*451Mr. Justice Harlan

delivered the opinion of the Court.

We review from the standpoint of its validity under the Federal Constitution a judgment of civil contempt entered against petitioner, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in the courts of Alabama. The question presented is whether Alabama, consistently with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, can compel petitioner to reveal to the State’s Attorney General the names and addresses of all its Alabama members and agents, without regard to their positions or functions in the Association. The judgment of contempt was based upon petitioner’s refusal to comply fully with a court order requiring in part the production of membership lists. Petitioner’s claim is that the order, in the circumstances shown by this record, violated rights assured to petitioner and its members under the Constitution.

Alabama has a statute similar to those of many other States which requires a foreign corporation, except as exempted, to qualify before doing business by filing its corporate charter with the Secretary of State and designating a place of business and an agent to receive service of process. The statute imposes a finé on a corporation transacting intrastate business before qualifying and provides for criminal prosecution of officers of such a corporation. Ala. Code, 1940, Tit. 10, §§ 192-198. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a nonprofit membership corporation organized under the laws of New York. Its purposes, fostered on a nationwide basis, are those indicated by its name,* and it oper*452ates through chartered affiliates which are independent unincorporated associations, with membership therein equivalent to membership in petitioner. The first Alabama affiliates were chartered in 1918. Since that time the aims of the Association have been advanced through activities of its affiliates, and in 1951 the Association itself opened a regional office in Alabama, at which it employed two supervisory persons and one clerical worker. The Association has never complied with the qualification statute, from which it considered itself exempt.

In 1956 the Attorney General of Alabama brought an equity suit in the State Circuit Court, Montgomery County, to enjoin the Association from conducting further activities within, and to oust it from, the State. Among other things the bill in equity alleged that the Association had opened a regional office and had organized-various affiliates in Alabama; had recruited members and solicited contributions within the State; had given financial support and furnished legal assistance to Negro students seeking admission to the state university; and had supported a Negro boycott of the bus lines in Montgomery to compel the seating of passengers without regard to race. The bill recited that the Association, by continuing to do business in Alabama without complying with the qualification statute, was “. . . causing irreparable injury to the property and civil rights of the residents and citizens of the State of Alabama for which criminal prosecution and civil actions at law afford no adequate relief . . . On the day the complaint was filed, the Circuit Court issued ex parte an order restraining the Association, pendente lite, from engaging in *453further activities within the State and forbidding it to take any steps to qualify itself to do business therein.

Petitioner demurred to the allegations of the bill and moved to dissolve the restraining order. It contended that its activities did not subject it to the qualification requirements of the statute and that in any event what the State sought to accomplish by its suit would violate rights to freedom of speech and assembly guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Before the date set for a hearing on this motion, the State moved for the production of a large number of the Association’s records and papers, including bank statements, leases, deeds, and records containing the names and addresses of all Alabama “members” and “agents” of the Association. It alleged that all such documents were necessary for adequate preparation for the hearing, in view of petitioner’s denial of the conduct of intrastate business within the meaning of the qualification statute. Over petitioner’s objections, the court ordered the production, of a substantial part of the requested records, including the membership lists, and postponed the hearing on the restraining order to a date later than the time ordered for production.

Thereafter petitioner filed its answer to the bill in equity. It admitted its Alabama activities substantially as alleged in the complaint and that it had not qualified to do business in the State. Although still disclaiming the statute’s application to it, petitioner offered to qualify if the bar from qualification made part of the restraining order were lifted, and it submitted with the answer an executed set of the forms required by the statute. However petitioner did not comply with the production order, and for this failure was adjudged in civil contempt and fined $10,000. The contempt judgment provided that the fine would be subject to reduction or remission if compliance *454were forthcoming within five days but otherwise would be increased to $100,000.

At the end of the five-day period petitioner produced substantially all the data called for by the production order except its membership lists, as to which it contended that Alabama could not constitutionally compel disclosure, and moved to modify or vacate the contempt judgment, or stay its execution pending appellate review. This motion was denied. While a similar stay application, which was later denied, was pending before the Supreme Court of Alabama, the Circuit Court made a further order adjudging petitioner in continuing contempt and increasing the fine already imposed to $100,000. Under Alabama law, see Jacoby v. Goetter, Weil & Co., 74 Ala. 427, the effect of the contempt adjudication was to foreclose petitioner from obtaining a hearing on the merits of the underlying ouster action, or from taking any steps to dissolve the temporary restraining order which had been issued ex parte, until it purged itself of contempt. But cf. Harrison v. St. Louis & S. F. R. Co., 232 U. S. 318; Hovey v. Elliott, 167 U. S. 409.

The State Supreme Court thereafter twice dismissed petitions for certiorari to review this final contempt judgment, the first time, 91 So. 2d 221, for insufficiency of the petition’s allegations and the second time on procedural grounds. 265 Ala. 349, 91 So. 2d 214. We granted certiorari because of the importance of the constitutional questions presented. 353 U. S. 972.

1 — 1

We address ourselves first to respondent’s contention that we lack jurisdiction because the denial of certiorari by the Supreme Court of Alabama rests on an independent nonfederal ground, namely, that petitioner in applying for certiorari had pursued the wrong appellate *455remedy under state law. Respondent recognizes that our jurisdiction is not defeated if the nonfederal ground relied on by the state court is “without any fair or substantial support,” Ward v. Board of County Commissioners, 253 U. S. 17, 22. It thus becomes our duty to ascertain, “. . . in order that constitutional guaranties may appropriately be enforced, whether the asserted non-federal ground independently and adequately supports the judgment.” Abie State Bank v. Bryan, 282 U. S. 765, 773.

The Alabama Supreme Court held that it could not consider the constitutional issues underlying the contempt judgment which related to the power of the State to order production of membership lists because review by certiorari was limited to instances “. . . where the court lacked jurisdiction of the proceeding, or where on the face of it the order disobeyed was void, or where procedural requirements with respect to citation for contempt and the like were not observed, or where the fact of contempt is not sustained . . . .” 265 Ala., at 353, 91 So. 2d, at 217. The proper means for petitioner to obtain review of the judgment in light of its constitutional claims, said the court, was by way of mandamus to quash the discovery order prior to the contempt adjudication. Because of petitioner’s failure to pursue this remedy, its challenge to the contempt order was restricted to the above grounds. Apparently not deeming the constitutional objections to draw into question whether “on the face of it the order disobeyed was void,” the court found no infirmity in the contempt judgment under this limited scope of review. At the same time it did go on to consider petitioner’s constitutional challenge to the order to produce membership lists but found it untenable since membership lists were not privileged against disclosure pursuant to reasonable state demands and since the privilege against self-incrimination was not available to corporations.

*456We are unable to reconcile the procedural holding of the Alabama Supreme Court in the present case with its past unambiguous holdings as to the scope of review available upon a writ of certiorari addressed to a contempt judgment. As early as 1909 that court said in such a case, Ex parte Dickens, 162 Ala. 272, at 276, 279-280, 50 So. 218, at 220, 221:

“Originally, on certiorari, only the question of jurisdiction was inquired into; but this limit has been removed, and now the court ‘examines the law questions involved in the case which may affect its merits.’...

“. . . [T]he judgment of this court is that the proper way to review the action of the court in cases of this kind is by certiorari, and not by appeal.

“We think that certiorari is a better remedy than mandamus, because the office of a ‘mandamus’ is to require the lower court or judge to act, and not ‘to correct error or to reverse judicial action,’. . . whereas, in a proceeding by certiorari, errors of law in the judicial action of the lower court may be inquired into and corrected.”

This statement was in full accord with the earlier case of Ex parte Boscowitz, 84 Ala. 463, 4 So. 279, and the practice in the later Alabama cases, until we reach the present one, appears to have been entirely consistent with this rule. See Ex parte Wheeler, 231 Ala. 356, 358, 165 So. 74, 75-76; Ex parte Blakey, 240 Ala. 517, 199 So. 857; Ex parte Sellers, 250 Ala. 87, 88, 33 So. 2d 349, 350. For example, in Ex parte Morris, 252 Ala. 551, 42 So. 2d 17, decided as late- as 1949, the petitioner had been held in contempt for his refusal to obey a court order to produce names of members of the Ku Klux Klan. On writ of certiorari, constitutional grounds were urged in part for *457reversal of the contempt conviction. In denying the writ of certiorari, the Supreme Court concluded that petitioner had been accorded due process, and in explaining its denial the court considered and rejected various constitutional claims relating to the validity of the order. There was no intimation that the petitioner had selected an inappropriate form of appellate review to obtain consideration of all questions of law raised by a contempt judgment.

The Alabama cases do indicate, as was said in the opinion below, that an order requiring production of evidence “. . . may be reviewed on petition for mandamus.” 265 Ala., at 353, 91 So. 2d, at 217. (Italics added.) See Ex parte Hart, 240 Ala. 642, 200 So. 783; cf. Ex parte Driver, 255 Ala. 118, 50 So. 2d 413. But we can discover nothing in the prior state cases which suggests that mandamus is the exclusive remedy for reviewing court orders after disobedience of them has led to contempt judgments. Nor, so far as we can find, do any of these prior decisions indicate that the validity of such orders can be drawn in question by way of certiorari only in instances where a defendant had no opportunity to apply for mandamus. Although the opinion below suggests no such distinction, the State now argues that this was in fact the situation in all of the earlier certiorari cases, because there the contempt adjudications, unlike here, had followed almost immediately the disobedience to the court orders. Even if that is indeed the rationale of the Alabama Supreme Court’s present decision, such a local procedural rule, although it may now appear in retrospect to form part of a consistent pattern of procedures to obtain appellate review, cannot avail the State here, because petitioner could not fairly be deemed to have been apprised of its existence. Novelty in procedural requirements cannot be permitted to thwart review in this Court applied for by those who, in justified reliance upon prior decisions, seek vindication in state courts of their federal constitu*458tional rights. Cf. Brinkerhoff-Faris Co. v. Hill, 281 U. S. 673.

That there was justified reliance here is further indicated by what the Alabama Supreme Court said in disposing of petitioner’s motion for a stay of the first contempt judgment in this case. This motion, which was filed prior to the final contempt judgment and which stressed constitutional issues, recited that “[t]he only way in which the [Association] can seek a review of the validity of the order upon which the adjudication of contempt is based [is] by filing a petition for Writ of Certiorari in this Court.” In denying the motion, 265 Ala. 356, 357, 91 So. 2d 220, 221, the Supreme Court stated:

“It is the established rule of this Court that the proper method of reviewing a judgment for civil contempt of the kind here involved is by a petition for common law writ of certiorari ....

“But the petitioner here has not applied for writ of certiorari, and we do not feel that the petition [for a stay] presently before us warrants our interference with the judgment of the Circuit Court of Montgomery County here sought to be stayed.”

We hold that this Court has jurisdiction to entertain petitioner’s federal claims.

II.

The Association both urges that it is constitutionally entitled to resist official inquiry into its membership lists, and that it may assert, on behalf of its members, a right personal to them to be protected from compelled disclosure by the State of their affiliation with the Association as revealed by the membership lists. We think that petitioner argues more appropriately the rights of its members, and that its nexus with them is sufficient to permit that it act as their representative before this *459Court. In so concluding, we reject respondent’s argument that the Association lacks standing to assert here constitutional rights pertaining to the members, who are not of course parties to the litigation.

To limit the breadth of issues which must be dealt with in particular litigation, this Court has generally insisted that parties rely only on constitutional rights which are personal to themselves. Tileston v. Ullman, 318 U. S. 44; Robertson and Kirkham, Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court (1951 ed.), § 298. This rule is related to the broader doctrine that constitutional adjudication should where possible be avoided. See Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U. S. 288, 346-348 (concurring opinion). The principle is not disrespected where constitutional rights of persons who are not immediately before the Court could not be effectively vindicated except through an appropriate representative before the Court. See Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U. S. 249, 255-259; Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 183-187 (concurring opinion).

If petitioner’s rank-and-file members are constitutionally entitled to withhold their connection with the Association despite the production order, it is manifest that this right is properly assertable by the Association. To require that it be claimed by the members themselves would result in nullification of the right at the very moment of its assertion. Petitioner is the appropriate party to assert these rights, because it and its members are in every practical sense identical. The Association, which provides in- its constitution that “[a]ny person who is in accordance with [its] principles and policies . . .” may become a member, is but the medium through which its individual members seek to make more effective the expression of their own views. The reasonable likelihood that the Association itself through diminished financial support and membership may be adversely *460affected if production is compelled is a further factor pointing towards our holding that petitioner has standing to complain of the production order on behalf of its members. Cf. Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 534-536.

III.

We thus reach petitioner’s claim that the production order in the state litigation trespasses upon fundamental freedoms protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Petitioner argues that in view of the facts and circumstances shown in the record, the effect of compelled disclosure of the membership lists will be to abridge the rights of its rank-and-file members to engage in lawful association in support of their common, beliefs. It contends that governmental action which, although not directly suppressing association, nevertheless carries this consequence, can be justified only upon some overriding valid interest of the State.

Effective advocacy of both public and private points of view, particularly controversial ones, is undeniably enhanced by group association, as this Court has more than once recognized by remarking upon the close nexus between the freedoms of speech and assembly. De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353, 364; Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 530. It is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the advancement' of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the “liberty” assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech. See Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 666; Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 324; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303; Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U. S. 313, 321. Of course, it is immaterial whether the beliefs sought to be advanced by association pertain to political, economic, religious or cultural matters, and state action which may have the *461effect of curtailing the freedom to associate is subject to the closest scrutiny.

The fact that Alabama,- so far as is relevant to the validity of the contempt judgment presently under review, has taken no direct action, cf. De Jonge v. Oregon, supra; Near v. Minnesota, 283 U. S. 697, to restrict the right of petitioner’s members to associate freely, does not end inquiry into the effect of the production order. See American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382, 402. In the domain of these indispensable liberties, whether of speech, press, or association, the decisions of this Court recognize that abridgment of such rights, even though unintended, may inevitably follow from varied forms of governmental action. Thus in Douds, the Court stressed that the legislation there challenged, which on its face sought to regulate labor unions and to secure stability in interstate commerce, would have the practical effect “of discouraging” the .exercise of constitutionally protected political rights, 339 U. S., at 393, and it upheld the statute only after concluding that the reasons advanced for its enactment were constitutionally sufficient to justify its possible deterrent effect upon such freedoms. Similar recognition of possible unconstitutional intimidation of the free exercise of the right to advocate underlay this Court’s narrow construction of the authority of a congressional committee investigating lobbying and of an Act regulating lobbying, although in neither case was there an effort to suppress speech. United States v. Rumely, 345 U. S. 41, 46-47; United States v. Harriss, 347 U. S. 612, 625-626. The governmental action challenged may appear to be totally unrelated to protected liberties. Statutes imposing taxes upon rather than prohibiting particular activity have been struck down when perceived to have the consequence of unduly curtailing the liberty of freedom of press assured under the Fourteenth Amendment. Grosjean v. American *462Press Co., 297 U. S. 233; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105.

It is hardly a novel perception that compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy may constitute as effective a restraint on freedom of association as the forms of governmental action in the cases above were thought likely to produce upon the particular constitutional rights there involved. This Court has recognized the vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one’s associations. When referring to the varied forms of governmental action which might interfere with freedom of assembly, it said in American Communications Assn. v. Douds, supra, at 402: “A requirement that adherents of particular religious faiths or political parties wear identifying arm-bands, for example, is obviously of this nature.” Compelled disclosure of membership in an organization engaged in advocacy of particular beliefs is of the same order. Inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs. Cf. United States v. Rumely, supra, at 56-58 (concurring opinion).

We think that the production order, in the respects here drawn in question, must be regarded as entailing the likelihood of a substantial restraint upon the exercise by petitioner’s members of their right to freedom of association. Petitioner has made an uncontroverted showing that on past occasions revelation of the identity of its rank-and-file members has exposed these members to economic reprisal, loss of employment, threat of physical coercion, and other manifestations of public hostility. Under these circumstances, we think it apparent that compelled disclosure of petitioner’s Alabama membership is likely to affect adversely the ability of petitioner and *463its members to pursue their collective effort to foster beliefs which they admittedly have the right to advocate, in that it may induce members to withdraw from the Association and dissuade others from joining it because of fear of exposure of their beliefs shown through their associations and of the consequences of this exposure.

It is not sufficient to answer, as the State does here, that whatever repressive effect compulsory disclosure of names of petitioner’s members may have upon participation by Alabama citizens in petitioner’s activities follows not from state action but from private community pressures. The crucial factor is the interplay of governmental and private action, for it is only after the initial exertion of state power represented by the production order that private action takes hold.

We turn to the final question whether Alabama has demonstrated an interest in obtaining the disclosures it seeks from petitioner which is sufficient to justify the deterrent effect which we have concluded these disclosures may well have on the free exercise by petitioner’s members of their constitutionally protected right of association. See American Communications Assn. v. Douds, supra, at 400; Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 161. Such a ". . . subordinating interest of the State must be compelling,” Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U. S. 234, 265 (concurring opinion). It is not of moment that the State has here acted solely through its judicial branch, for whether legislative or judicial, it is still the application of state power which we are asked to scrutinize.

It is important to bear in mind that petitioner asserts no right to absolute immunity from state investigation, and no right to disregard Alabama’s laws. As shown by its substantial compliance with the production order, petitioner does not deny Alabama’s right to obtain from it such information as the State desires concerning the pur*464poses of the Association and its activities within the State. Petitioner has not objected to divulging the identity of its members who are employed by or hold official positions with it. It has urged the rights solely of its ordinary rank- and-file members. This is therefore not analogous to a case involving the interest of a State in protecting its citizens in their dealings with paid solicitors or agents of foreign corporations by requiring identification. See Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, at 306; Thomas v. Collins, supra, at 538.

Whether there was "justification” in this instance turns solely on the substantiality of Alabama’s interest in obtaining the membership lists. During the course of a hearing before the Alabama Circuit Court on a motion of petitioner to set aside the production order, the State Attorney General presented at length, under examination by petitioner, the State’s reason for requesting the membership lists. The exclusive purpose was to determine whether petitioner was conducting intrastate business in violation of the Alabama foreign corporation registration statute, and the membership lists were expected to help resolve this question. The issues in the litigation commenced by Alabama by its bill in equity were whether the character of petitioner and its activities in Alabama had been such as to maké petitioner subject to the registration statute, and whether the extent of petitioner’s activities without qualifying suggested its permanent ouster from the State. Without intimating the slightest view upon the merits of these issues, we' are unable to perceive that the disclosure of the names of petitioner’s rank-and-file members has a substantial bearing on either of them. As matters stand in the state court, petitioner (1) has admitted its presence and conduct of activities in Alabama since 1918; (2) has offered to comply in all respects with the state qualification statute, although pre*465serving its contention that the statute does not apply to it; and (3) has apparently complied satisfactorily with the production order, except for the membership lists, by furnishing the Attorney General with varied business records, its charter and statement of purposes, the names of all of its directors and officers, and with the total number of its Alabama members and the amount of their dues. These last items would not on this record appear subject to constitutional challenge and have been furnished, but whatever interest the State may have in obtaining names of ordinary members has not been shown to be sufficient to overcome petitioner’s constitutional objections to the production order.

From what, has already been said, we think it apparent that Bryant v. Zimmerman, 278 U. S. 63, cannot be relied on in support of the State’s position, for that case involved markedly different considerations in terms of the interest of the State in obtaining disclosure. There, this Court upheld, as applied to a member of a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, a New York statute requiring any unincorporated association which demanded an oath as a condition to membership to file with state officials copies of its “. . . constitution, by-laws, rules, regulations and oath of membership, together with a roster of its membership and a list of its officers for the current year.” N. Y. Laws 1923, c. 664, §§ 53, 56. In its opinion, the Court took care to emphasize the nature of the organization which New York sought to regulate. The decision was based on the particular character of the Klan’s activities, involving acts of unlawful intimidation and violence, which the Court assumed was before the state legislature when it enacted the statute, and of which the Court itself took judicial notice. Furthermore, the situation before us is significantly different from that in Bryant, because the organization there had made no effort to comply with *466any of the requirements of New York’s statute but rather had refused to furnish the State with any information as to its local activities.

We hold that the immunity from state scrutiny of membership lists which the Association claims on behalf of its members is here so related to the right of the members to pursue their lawful private interests privately and to associate freely with others in so doing as to come within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment. And we conclude that Alabama has fallen short of showing a controlling justification for the deterrent effect on the free enjoyment of the right to associate which disclosure of membership lists is likely to have. Accordingly, the judgment of civil contempt and the $100,000 fine which resulted from petitioner’s refusal to comply with the production order in this respect must fall.

IV.

Petitioner joins with, its attack upon the production order a challenge to the constitutionality of the State’s ex parte temporary restraining order preventing it from soliciting support in Alabama, and it asserts that the Fourteenth Amendment precludes such state action. But as noted above, petitioner has never received a hearing on the merits of the ouster suit, and we do not consider these questions properly here. The Supreme Court of Alabama noted in its denial of the petition for certiorari that such petition raised solely a question pertinent to the contempt adjudication. “The ultimate aim and purpose of the litigation is to determine the right of the state to enjoin petitioners from doing business in Alabama. That question, however, is not before us in this proceeding.” 265 Ala., at 352, 91 So. 2d, at 216. The proper method for raising questions in the state appellate courts pertinent to the underlying suit for an injunction appears *467to be by appeal, after a hearing on the merits and final judgment by the lower state court. Only from the disposition of such an appeal can review be sought here.

For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Alabama must be reversed and the case remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Reversed.

Justice Souter

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The issue in this case is 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. We hold that such a mandate violates the First Amendment.

*560I

March 17 is set aside for two celebrations in South Boston. As early as 1737, some people in Boston observed the feast of the apostle to Ireland, and since 1776 the day has marked the evacuation of royal troops and Loyalists from the city, prompted by the guns captured at Ticonderoga and set up on Dorchester Heights under General Washington’s command. Washington himself reportedly drew on the earlier tradition in choosing “St. Patrick” as the response to “Boston,” the password used in the colonial lines on evacuation day. See J. Crimmins, St. Patrick’s Day: Its Celebration in New York and other American Places, 1737-1845, pp. 15, 19 (1902); see generally 1 H. Commager & R. Morris, The Spirit of ’Seventy Six, pp. 138-183 (1958); The American Book of Days 262-265 (J. Hatch ed., 3d ed. 1978). Although the General Court of Massachusetts did not officially designate March 17 as Evacuation Day until 1938, see Mass. Gen. Laws §6:12K (1992), the City Council of Boston had previously sponsored public celebrations of Evacuation Day, including notable commemorations on the centennial in 1876, and on the 125th anniversary in 1901, with its parade, salute, concert, and fireworks display. See Celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of the Evacuation of Boston by the British Army (G. Ellis ed. 1876); Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston v. City of Boston et al., Civ. Action No. 92-1518A (Super. Ct., Mass., Dec. 15, 1993), reprinted in App. to Pet. for Cert. Bl, B8-B9.

The tradition of formal sponsorship by the city came to an end in 1947, however, when Mayor James Michael Curley himself granted authority to organize and conduct the St. Patrick’s Day-Evacuation Day Parade to the petitioner South Boston Allied War Veterans Council, an unincorporated association of individuals elected from various South Boston veterans groups. Every year since that time, the Council has applied for and received a permit for the parade, which at times has included as many as 20,000 marchers and drawn *561up to 1 million watchers. No other applicant has ever applied for that permit. Id., at B9. Through 1992, the city allowed the Council to use the city’s official seal, and provided printing services as well as direct funding.

In 1992, a number of gay, lesbian, and bisexual descendants of the Irish immigrants joined together with other supporters to form the respondent organization, GLIB, to march in the parade as a way to express pride in their Irish heritage as openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals, to demonstrate that there are such men and women among those so descended, and to express their solidarity with like individuals who sought to march in New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Id., at B3; App. 51. Although the Council denied GLIB’s application to take part in the 1992 parade, GLIB obtained a state-court order to include its contingent, which marched “uneventfully” among that year’s 10,000 participants and 750,000 spectators. App. to Pet. for Cert. B3, and n. 4.

In 1993, after the Council had again refused to admit GLIB to the upcoming parade, the organization and some of its members filed this suit against the Council, the individual petitioner John J. “Wacko” Hurley, and the city of Boston, alleging violations of the State and Federal Constitutions and of the state public accommodations law, which prohibits “any distinction, discrimination or restriction on account of . . . sexual orientation . . . relative to the admission of any person to, or treatment in any place of public accommodation, resort or amusement.” Mass. Gen. Laws §272:98 (1992). After finding that “[f]or at least the past 47 years, the Parade has traveled the same basic route along the public streets of South Boston, providing entertainment, amusement, and recreation to participants and spectators alike,” App. to Pet. for Cert. B5-B6, the state trial court ruled that the parade fell within the statutory definition of a public accommodation, which includes “any place ... which is open to and accepts or solicits the patronage of the general public *562and, without limiting the generality of this definition, whether or not it be . . . (6) a boardwalk or other public highway [or] ... (8) a place of public amusement, recreation, sport, exercise or entertainment,” Mass. Gen. Laws §272:92A (1992). The court found that the Council had no written criteria and employed no particular procedures for admission, voted on new applications in batches, had occasionally admitted groups who simply showed up at the parade without having submitted an application, and did “not generally inquire into the specific messages or views of each applicant.” App. to Pet. for Cert. B8-B9. The court consequently rejected the Council’s contention that the parade was “private” (in the sense of being exclusive), holding instead that “the lack of genuine selectivity in choosing participants and sponsors demonstrates that the Parade is a public event.” Id., at B6. It found the parade to be “eclectic,” containing a wide variety of “patriotic, commercial, political, moral, artistic, religious, athletic, public service, trade union, and eleemosynary themes,” as well as conflicting messages. Id., at B24. While noting that the Council had indeed excluded the Ku Klux Klan and ROAR (an antibusing group), id., at B7, it attributed little significance to these facts, concluding ultimately that “[t]he only common theme among the participants and sponsors is their public involvement in the Parade,” id., at B24.

The court rejected the Council’s assertion that the exclusion of “groups with sexual themes merely formalized [the fact] that the Parade expresses traditional religious and social values,” id., at B3, and found the Council’s “final position [to be] that GLIB would be excluded because of its values and its message, i. e., its members’ sexual orientation,” id., at B4, n. 5, citing Tr. of Closing Arg. 43, 51-52 (Nov. 23,1993). This position, in the court’s view, was not only violative of the public accommodations law but “paradoxical” as well-, since “a proper celebration of St. Patrick’s and Evacuation Day requires diversity and inclusiveness.” App. to Pet. for *563Cert. B24. The court rejected the notion that GLIB’s admission would trample on the Council’s First Amendment rights since the court understood that constitutional protection of any interest in expressive association would “requir[e] focus on a specific message, theme, or group” absent from the parade. Ibid. “Given the [Council’s] lack of selectivity in choosing participants and failure to circumscribe the marchers’ message,” the court found it “impossible to discern any specific expressive purpose entitling the Parade to protection under the First Amendment.” Id., at B25. It concluded that the parade is “not an exercise of [the Council’s] constitutionally protected right of.expressive association,” but instead “an open recreational event that is subject to the public accommodations law.” Id., at B27.

The court held that because the statute did not mandate inclusion of GLIB but only prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation, any infringement on the Council’s right to expressive association was only “incidental” and “no greater than necessary to accomplish the statute’s legitimate purpose” of eradicating discrimination. Id., at B25, citing Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609, 628-629 (1984). Accordingly, it ruled that “GLIB is entitled to participate in the Parade on the same terms and conditions as other participants.” App. to Pet. for Cert. B27.1

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed, seeing nothing clearly erroneous in the trial judge’s findings *564that GLIB was excluded from the parade based on the sexual orientation of its members, that it was impossible to detect an expressive purpose in the parade, that there was no state action, and that the parade was a public accommodation within the meaning of § 272:92A. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston v. Boston, 418 Mass. 238, 242-248, 636 N. E. 2d 1293, 1295-1298 (1994).2 Turning to petitioners’ First Amendment claim that application of the public accommodations law to the parade violated their freedom of speech (as distinguished from their right to expressive association, raised in the trial court), the court’s majority held that it need not decide on the particular First Amendment theory involved “because, as the [trial] judge found, it is ‘impossible to discern any specific expressive purpose entitling the Parade to protection under the First Amendment.’” Id., at 249, 636 N. E. 2d, at 1299 (footnote omitted). The defendants had thus failed at the trial level “to demonstrate that the parade truly was an exercise of... First Amendment rights,” id., at 250, 636 N. E. 2d, at 1299, citing Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U. S. 288, 293, n. 5 (1984), and on appeal nothing indicated to the majority of the Supreme Judicial Court that the trial judge’s assessment of the evidence on this point was clearly erroneous, 418 Mass., at 250, 636 N. E. 2d, at 1299. The court rejected petitioners’ further challenge to the law as overbroad, holding that it does not, on its face, regulate speech, does not let public officials examine the content of speech, and would not be interpreted as reaching speech. Id., at 251-252, 636 N. E. 2d, at 1300. Finally, the court rejected the challenge that the public accommodations law was unconstitutionally vague, holding that this case did not present an issue of speech and that the law gave persons of *565ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what was prohibited. Id., at 252, 636 N. E. 2d, at 1300-1301.

Justice Nolan dissented. In his view, the Council “does not need a narrow or distinct theme or message in its parade for it to be protected under the First Amendment.” Id., at 256, 636 N. E. 2d, at 1303. First, he wrote, even if the parade had no message at all, GLIB’s particular message could not be forced upon it. Id., at 257, 636 N. E. 2d, at 1303, citing Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705, 717 (1977) (state requirement to display “Live Free or Die” on license plates violates First Amendment). Second, according to Justice Nolan, the trial judge clearly erred in finding the parade devoid of expressive purpose. 418 Mass., at 257, 636 N. E. 2d, at 1303. He would have held that the Council, like any expressive association, cannot be barred from excluding applicants who do not share the views the Council wishes to advance. Id., at 257-259, 636 N. E. 2d, at 1303-1304, citing Roberts, supra. Under either a pure speech or associational theory, the State’s purpose of eliminating discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, according to the dissent, could be achieved by more narrowly drawn means, such as ordering admission of individuals regardless of sexual preference, without taking the further step of prohibiting the Council from editing the views expressed in their parade. 418 Mass., at 256, 258, 636 N. E. 2d, at 1302, 1304. In Justice Nolan’s opinion, because GLIB’s message was separable from the status of its members, such a narrower order would accommodate the State’s interest without the likelihood of infringing on the Council’s First Amendment rights. Finally, he found clear error in the trial judge’s equation of exclusion on the basis of GLIB’s message with exclusion on the basis of its members’ sexual orientation. To the dissent this appeared false in the light of “overwhelming evidence” that the Council objected to GLIB on account of its message and a dearth of testimony or documentation indicating that sexual orientation was the bar to admission. Id., at 260, 636 *566N. E. 2d, at 1304. The dissent accordingly concluded that the Council had not even violated the State’s public accommodations law.

We granted certiorari to determine whether the requirement to admit a parade contingent expressing a message not of the private organizers’ own choosing violates the First Amendment. 513 U. S. 1071 (1995). We hold that it does and reverse.

II

Given the scope of the issues as originally joined in this case, it is worth noting some that have fallen aside in the course of the litigation, before reaching us. Although the Council presents us with a First Amendment claim, respondents do not. Neither do they press a claim that the Council’s action has denied them equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. While the guarantees of free speech and equal protection guard only against encroachment by the government and “erec[t] no shield against merely private conduct,” Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1, 13 (1948); see Hudgens v. NLRB, 424 U. S. 507, 513 (1976), respondents originally argued that the Council’s conduct was not purely private, but had the character of state action. The trial court’s review of the city’s involvement led it to find otherwise, however, and although the Supreme Judicial Court did not squarely address the issue, it appears to have affirmed the trial court’s decision on that point as well as the others. In any event, respondents have not brought that question up either in a cross-petition for certiorari or in their briefs filed in this Court. When asked at oral argument whether they challenged the conclusion by the Massachusetts’ courts that no state action is involved in the parade, respondents’ counsel answered that they “do not press that issue here.” . Tr. of Oral Arg. 22. In this Court, then, their claim for inclusion in the parade rests solely on the Massachusetts public accommodations law.

*567There is no corresponding concession from the other side, however, and certainly not to the state courts’ characterization of the parade as lacking the element of expression for purposes of the First Amendment. Accordingly, our review of petitioners’ claim that their activity is indeed in the nature of protected speech carries with it a constitutional duty to conduct an independent examination of the record as a whole, without deference to the trial court. See Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U. S. 485, 499 (1984). The “requirement of independent appellate review ... is a rule of federal constitutional law,” id., at 510, which does not limit our deference to a trial court on matters of witness credibility, Harte-Hanks Communications, Inc. v. Connaughton, 491 U. S. 657, 688 (1989), but which generally requires us to “review the finding of facts by a State court . . . where a conclusion of law as to a Federal right and a finding of fact are so intermingled as to make it necessary, in order to pass upon the Federal question, to analyze the facts,” Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U. S. 380, 385-386 (1927). See also Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268, 271 (1951); Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U. S. 184, 189 (1964) (opinion of Brennan, J.). This obligation rests upon us simply because the reaches of the First Amendment are ultimately defined by the facts it is held to embrace, and we must thus decide for ourselves whether a given course of conduct falls on the near or far side of the line of constitutional protection. See Bose Corp., supra, at 503. Even where a speech case has originally been tried in a federal court, subject to the provision of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a) that “[findings of fact. . . shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous,” we are obliged to make a fresh examination of crucial facts. Hence, in this case, though we are confronted with the state courts’ conclusion that the factual characteristics of petitioners’ activity place it within the vast realm of nonexpressive conduct, our obligation is to “ ‘make an independent examina*568tion of the whole record,’... so as to assure ourselves that th[is] judgment does not constitute a forbidden intrusion on the field of free expression.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 285 (1964) (footnote omitted), quoting Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U. S. 229, 235 (1963).

y — i

A

If there were no reason for a group of people to march from here to there except to reach a destination, they could make the trip without expressing any message beyond the fact of the march itself. Some people might call such a procession a parade, but it would not be much of one. Real “[pjarades are public dramas of social relations, and in them performers define who can be a social actor and what subjects and ideas are available for communication and consideration.” S. Davis, Parades and Power: Street Theatre in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia 6 (1986). Hence, we use the word “parade” to indicate marchers who are making some sort of collective point, not just to each other but to bystanders along the way. Indeed, a parade’s dependence on watchers is so extreme that nowadays, as with Bishop Berkeley’s celebrated tree, “if a parade or demonstration receives no media coverage, it may as well not have happened.” Id., at 171. Parades are thus a form of expression, not just motion, and the inherent expressiveness of marching to make a point explains our cases involving protest marches. In Gregory v. Chicago, 394 U. S. 111, 112 (1969), for example, petitioners had taken part in a procession to express their grievances to the city government, and we held that such a “march, if peaceful and orderly, falls well within the sphere of conduct protected by the First Amendment.” Similarly, in Edwards v. South Carolina, supra, at 235, where petitioners had joined in a march of protest and pride, carrying placards and singing The Star Spangled Banner, we held that the activities “reflect an exercise of these basic constitutional *569rights in their most pristine and classic form.” Accord, Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U. S. 147, 152 (1969).

The protected expression that inheres in a parade is not limited to its banners and songs, however, for the Constitution looks beyond written or spoken words as mediums of expression. Noting that “[s]ymbolism is a primitive but effective way of communicating ideas,” West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 632 (1943), our cases have recognized that the First Amendment shields such acts as saluting a flag (and refusing to do so), id., at 632, 642, wearing an armband to protest a war, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 505-506 (1969), displaying a red flag, Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359, 369 (1931), and even “[m] arching, walking or parading” in uniforms displaying the swastika, National Socialist Party of America v. Skokie, 432 U. S. 43 (1977). As some of these examples show, a narrow, succinctly articulable message is not a condition of constitutional protection, which if confined to expressions conveying a “particularized message,” cf. Spence v. Washington, 418 U. S. 405, 411 (1974) (per curiam), would never reach the unquestionably shielded painting of Jackson Pollock, music of Arnold Schoenberg, or Jabber-wocky verse of Lewis Carroll.

Not many marches, then, are beyond the realm of expressive parades, and the South Boston celebration is not one of them. Spectators line the streets; people march in costumes and uniforms, carrying flags and banners with all sorts of messages (e.g., “England get out of Ireland,” “Say no to drugs”); marching bands and pipers play; floats are pulled along; and the whole show is broadcast over Boston television. See Record, Exh. 84 (video). To be sure, we agree with the state courts that in spite of excluding some applicants, the Council is rather lenient in admitting participants. But a private speaker does not forfeit constitutional protection simply by combining multifarious voices, or by failing to edit their themes to isolate an exact message as the exclusive *570subject matter of the speech. Nor, under our precedent, does First Amendment protection require a speaker to generate, as an original matter, each item featured in the communication. Cable operators, for example, are engaged in protected speech activities even when they only select programming originally produced by others. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U. S. 622, 636 (1994) (“Cable programmers and cable operators engage in and transmit speech, and they are entitled to the protection of the speech and press provisions of the First Amendment”). For that matter, the presentation of an edited compilation of speech generated by other persons is a staple of most newspapers’ opinion pages, which, of course, fall squarely within the core of First Amendment security, Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U. S. 241, 258 (1974), as does even the simple selection of a paid noncommercial advertisement for inclusion in a daily paper, see New York Times, 376 U. S., at 265-266. The selection of contingents to make a parade is entitled to similar protection.

Respondents’ participation as a unit in the parade was equally expressive. GLIB was formed for the very purpose of marching in it, as the trial court found, in order to celebrate its members’ identity as openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual descendants of the Irish immigrants, to show that there are such individuals in the community, and to support the like men and women who sought to march in the New York parade. App. to Pet. for Cert. B3. The organization distributed a fact sheet describing the members’ intentions, App. A51, and the record otherwise corroborates the expressive nature of GLIB’s participation, see Record, Exh. 84 (video); App. A67 (photograph). In 1993, members of GLIB marched behind a shamrock-strewn banner with the simple inscription “Irish American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston.” GLIB understandably seeks to communicate its ideas as part of the existing parade, rather than staging one of its own.

*571B

The Massachusetts public accommodations law under which respondents brought suit has a venerable history. At common law, innkeepers, smiths, and others who “made profession of a public employment,” were prohibited from refusing, without good reason, to serve a customer. Lane v. Cotton, 12 Mod. 472, 484-485, 88 Eng. Rep. 1458, 1464-1465 (K. B. 1701) (Holt, C. J.); see Bell v. Maryland, 378 U. S. 226, 298, n. 17 (1964) (Goldberg, J., concurring); Lombard v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 267, 277 (1963) (Douglas, J., concurring). As one of the 19th-century English judges put it, the rule was that “[t]he innkeeper is not to select his guests[;] [h]e has no right to say to one, you shall come into my inn, and to another you shall not, as every one coming and conducting himself in a proper manner has a right to be received; and for this purpose innkeepers are a sort of public servants.” Rex v. Ivens, 7 Car. & P. 213, 219, 173 Eng. Rep. 94, 96 (N. P. 1835); M. Konvitz & T. Leskes, A Century of Civil Rights 160 (1961).

After the Civil War, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was the first State to codify this principle to ensure access to public accommodations regardless of race. See Act Forbidding Unjust Discrimination on Account of Color or Race, 1865 Mass. Acts, ch. 277 (May 16, 1865); Konvitz & Leskes, supra, at 155-156; Lerman & Sanderson, Discrimination in Access to Public Places: A Survey of State and Federal Public Accommodations Laws, 7 N. Y. U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 215, 238 (1978); Fox, Discrimination and Antidiscrimination in Massachusetts Law, 44 B. U. L. Rev. 30, 58 (1964). In prohibiting discrimination “in any licensed inn, in any public place of amusement, public conveyance or public meeting,” 1865 Mass. Acts, ch. 277, § 1, the original statute already expanded upon the common law, which had not conferred any right of access to places of public amusement, Lerman & Sanderson, supra, at 248. As with 'many public accommodations statutes across the Nation, the legislature continued to *572broaden the scope of legislation, to the point that the law today prohibits discrimination on the basis of “race, color, religious creed, national origin, sex, sexual orientation . . . , deafness, blindness or any physical or mental disability or ancestry” in “the admission of any person to, or treatment in any place of public accommodation, resort or amusement.” Mass. Gen. Laws §272:98 (1992). Provisions like these are well within the State’s usual power to enact when a legislature has reason to believe that a given group is the target of discrimination, and they do not, as a general matter, violate the First or Fourteenth Amendments. See, e. g., New York State Club Assn., Inc. v. City of New York, 487 U. S. 1, 11-16 (1988); Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S., at 624-626; Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 258-262 (1964). Nor is this statute unusual in any obvious way, since it does not, on its face, target speech or discriminate on the basis of its content, the focal point of its prohibition being rather on the act of discriminating against individuals in the provision of publicly available goods, privileges, and services on the proscribed grounds.

C

In the case before us, however, the Massachusetts law has been applied in a peculiar way. Its enforcement does not address any dispute about the participation of openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual individuals in various units admitted to the parade. Petitioners disclaim any intent to exclude homosexuals as such, and no individual member of GLIB claims to have been excluded from parading as a member of any group that the Council has approved to march. Instead, the disagreement goes to the admission of GLIB as its own parade unit carrying its own banner. See App. to Pet. for Cert. B26-B27, and n. 28. Since every participating unit affects the message conveyed by the private organizers, the state courts’ application of the statute produced an order essentially requiring petitioners to alter the expressive content *573of their parade. Although the state courts spoke of the parade as a place of public accommodation, see, e. g., 418 Mass., at 247-248, 636 N. E. 2d, at 1297-1298, once the expressive character of both the parade and the marching GLIB contingent is understood, it becomes apparent that the state courts’ application of the statute had the effect of declaring the sponsors’ speech itself to be the public accommodation. Under this approach any contingent of protected individuals with a message would have the right to participate in petitioners’ speech, so that the communication produced by the private organizers would be shaped by all those protected by the law who wished to join in with some expressive demonstration of their own. But this use of the State’s power violates the fundamental rule of protection under the First Amendment, that a speaker has the autonomy to choose the content of his own message.

“Since all speech inherently involves choices of what to say and what to leave unsaid,” Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Public Utilities Comm’n of Cal., 475 U. S. 1, 11 (1986) (plurality opinion) (emphasis in original), one important manifestation of the principle of free speech is that one who chooses to speak may also decide “what not to say,” id., at 16. Although the State may at times “prescribe what shall be orthodox in commercial advertising” by requiring the dissemination of “purely factual and uncontroversial information,” Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel of Supreme Court of Ohio, 471 U. S. 626, 651 (1985); see Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Pittsburgh Comm’n on Human Relations, 413 U. S. 376, 386-387 (1973), outside that context it may not compel affirmance of a belief with which the speaker disagrees, see Barnette, 319 U. S., at 642. Indeed this general rule, that the speaker has the right to tailor the speech, applies not only to expressions of value, opinion, or endorsement, but equally to statements of fact the speaker would rather avoid, McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 514 U. S. 334, 341-342 (1995); Riley v. National Federation of Blind of N. C, Inc., *574487 U. S. 781, 797-798 (1988), subject, perhaps, to the permissive law of defamation, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964); Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 347-349 (1974); Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U. S. 46 (1988). Nor is the rule’s benefit restricted to the press, being enjoyed by business corporations generally and by ordinary people engaged in unsophisticated expression as well as by professional publishers. Its point is simply the point of all speech protection, which is to shield just those choices of content that in someone’s eyes are misguided, or even hurtful. See Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444 (1969); Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1 (1949).

Petitioners’ claim to the benefit of this principle of autonomy to control one’s own speech is as sound as the South Boston parade is expressive. Rather like a composer, the Council selects the expressive units of the parade from potential participants, and though the score may not produce a particularized message, each contingent’s expression in the Council’s eyes comports with what merits celebration on that day. Even if this view gives the Council credit for a more considered judgment than it actively made, the Council clearly decided to exclude a message it did not like from the communication it chose to make, and that is enough to invoke its right as a private speaker to shape its expression by speaking on one subject while remaining silent on another. The message it disfavored is not difficult to identify. Although GLIB’s point (like the Council’s) is not wholly articulate, a contingent marching behind the organization’s banner would at least bear witness to the fact that some Irish are gay, lesbian, or bisexual, and the presence of the organized marchers would suggest their view that people of their sexual orientations have as much claim to unqualified social acceptance as heterosexuals and indeed as members of parade units organized around other identifying characteristics. The parade’s organizers may not believe these facts about Irish sexuality to be so, or they may object to unqualified *575social acceptance of gays and lesbians or have some other reason for wishing to keep GLIB’s message out of the parade. But whatever the reason, it boils down to the choice of a speaker not to propound a particular point of view, and that choice is presumed to lie beyond the government’s power to control.

Respondents argue that any tension between this rule and the Massachusetts law falls short of unconstitutionality, citing the most recent of our cases on the general subject of compelled access for expressive purposes, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U. S. 622 (1994). There we reviewed regulations requiring cable operators to set aside channels for designated broadcast signals, and applied only intermediate scrutiny. Id., at 662. Respondents contend on this authority that admission of GLIB to the parade would not threaten the core principle of speaker’s autonomy because the Council, like a cable operator, is merely “a conduit” for the speech of participants in the parade “rather than itself a speaker.” Brief for Respondents 21. But this metaphor is not apt here, because GLIB’s participation would likely be perceived as having resulted from the Council’s customary determination about a unit admitted to the parade, that its message was worthy of presentation and quite possibly of support as well. A newspaper, similarly, “is more than a passive receptacle or conduit for news, comment, and advertising,” and we have held that “[t]he choice of material . . . and the decisions made as to limitations on the size and content . . . and treatment of public issues . . . — whether fair or unfair — constitute the exercise of editorial control and judgment” upon which the State can not intrude. Tornillo, 418 U. S., at 258. Indeed, in Pacific Gas & Electric, we invalidated coerced access to the envelope of a private utility’s bill and newsletter because the utility “may be forced either to appear to agree with [the intruding leaflet] or to respond.” 475 U. S., at 15 (plurality opinion) (citation omitted). The plurality made the further point that if “the government *576[were] freely able to compel. . . speakers to propound political messages with which they disagree, . . . protection [of a speaker’s freedom] would be empty, for the government could require speakers to affirm in one breath that which they deny in the next.” Id., at 16. Thus, when dissemination of a view contrary to one’s own is forced upon a speaker intimately connected with the communication advanced, the speaker’s right to autonomy over the message is compromised.

In Turner Broadcasting, we found this problem absent in the cable context, because “[g]iven cable’s long history of serving as a conduit for broadcast signals, there appears little risk that cable viewers would assume that the broadcast stations carried on a cable system convey ideas or messages endorsed by the cable operator.” 512 U. S., at 655. We stressed that the viewer is frequently apprised of the identity of the broadcaster whose signal is being received via cable and that it is “common practice for broadcasters to disclaim any identity of viewpoint between the management and the speakers who use the broadcast facility.” Ibid, (citation omitted); see id., at 684 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (noting that Congress “might... conceivably obligate cable operators to act as common carriers for some of their channels”).

Parades and demonstrations, in contrast, are not understood to be so neutrally presented or selectively viewed. Unlike the programming offered on various channels by a cable network, the parade does not consist of individual, unrelated segments that happen to be transmitted together for individual selection by members of the audience. Although each parade unit generally identifies itself, each is understood to contribute something to a common theme, and accordingly there is no customary practice whereby private sponsors disavow “any identity of viewpoint” between themselves and the selected participants. Practice follows practicability here, for such disclaimers would be quite curious in a moving *577parade. Cf. PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U. S. 74, 87 (1980) (owner of shopping mall “can expressly disavow any connection with the message by simply posting signs in the area where the speakers or handbillers stand”). Without deciding on the precise significance of the likelihood of misattribution, it nonetheless becomes clear that in the context of an expressive parade, as with a protest march, the parade’s overall message is distilled from the individual presentations along the way, and each unit’s expression is perceived by spectators as part of the whole.

An additional distinction between Turner Broadcasting and this ease points to the fundamental weakness of any attempt to justify the state-court order’s limitation on the Council’s autonomy as a speaker. A cable is not only a conduit for speech produced by others and selected by cable operators for transmission, but a franchised channel giving monopolistic opportunity to shut out some speakers. This power gives rise to the Government’s interest in limiting monopolistic autonomy in order to allow for the survival of broadcasters who might otherwise be silenced and consequently destroyed. The Government’s interest in Turner Broadcasting was not the alteration of speech, but the survival of speakers. In thus identifying an interest going beyond abridgment of speech itself, the defenders of the law at issue in Turner Broadcasting addressed the threshold requirement of any review under the Speech Clause, whatever the ultimate level of scrutiny, that a challenged restriction on speech serve a compelling, or at least important, governmental object, see, e. g., Pacific Gas & Electric, supra, at 19; Turner Broadcasting, supra, at 662; United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 377 (1968).

In this case, of course, there is no assertion comparable to the Turner Broadcasting claim that some speakers will be destroyed in the absence of the challenged law. True, the size and success of petitioners’ parade makes it an enviable vehicle for the dissemination of GLIB’s views, but that fact, *578without more, would fall far short of supporting a claim that petitioners enjoy an abiding monopoly of access to spectators. See-App. to Pet. for Cert. B9; Brief for Respondents 10 (citing trial court’s finding that no other applicant has applied for the permit). Considering that GLIB presumably would have had a fair shot (under neutral criteria developed by the city) at obtaining a parade permit of its own, respondents have not shown that petitioners enjoy the capacity to “silence the voice of competing speakers,” as cable operators do with respect to program providers who wish to reach subscribers, Turner Broadcasting, supra, at 656. Nor has any other legitimate interest been identified in support of applying the Massachusetts statute in this way to expressive activity like the parade.

The statute, Mass. Gen. Laws § 272:98 (1992), is a piece of protective legislation that announces no purpose beyond the object both expressed and apparent in its provisions, which is to prevent any denial of access to (or discriminatory treatment in) public accommodations on proscribed grounds, including sexual orientation. On its face, the object of the law is to ensure by statute for gays and lesbians desiring to make use of public accommodations what the old common law promised to any member of the public wanting a meal at the inn, that accepting the usual terms of service, they will not be turned away merely on the proprietor’s exercise of personal preference. When the law is applied to expressive activity in the way it was done here, its apparent object is simply to require speakers to modify the content of their expression to whatever extent beneficiaries of the law choose to alter it with messages of their own. But in the absence of some further, legitimate end, this object is merely to allow exactly what the general rule of speaker’s autonomy forbids.

It might, of course, have been argued that a broader objective is apparent: that the ultimate point of forbidding acts of discrimination toward certain classes is to produce a society free of the corresponding biases. Requiring access to a *579speaker’s message would thus be not an end in itself, but a means to produce speakers free of the biases, whose expressive conduct would be at least neutral toward the particular classes, obviating any future need for correction. But if this indeed is the point of applying the state law to expressive conduct, it is a decidedly fatal objective. Having availed itself of the public thoroughfares “for purposes of assembly [and] communicating thoughts between citizens,” the Council is engaged in a use of the streets that has “from ancient times, been a part of the privileges, immunities, rights, and liberties of citizens.” Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, 307 U. S. 496, 515 (1939) (opinion of Roberts, J.). Our tradition of free speech commands that a speaker who takes to the street corner to express his views in this way should be free from interference by the State based on the content of what he says. See, e. g., Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92, 95 (1972); cf. H. Kalven, A Worthy Tradition 6-19 (1988); Fiss, Free Speech and Social Structure, 71 Iowa L. Rev. 1405,1408-1409 (1986). The very idea that a noncommercial speech restriction be used to produce thoughts and statements acceptable to some groups or, indeed, all people, grates on the First Amendment, for it amounts to nothing less than a proposal to limit speech in the service of orthodox expression. The Speech Clause has no more certain antithesis. See, e. g., Barnette, 319 U. S., at 642; Pacific Gas & Electric, 475 U. S., at 20. While the law is free to promote all sorts of conduct in place of harmful behavior, it is not free to interfere with speech for no better reason than promoting an approved message or discouraging a disfavored one, however enlightened either purpose may strike the government.

Far from supporting GLIB, then, Turner Broadcasting points to the reasons why the present application of the Massachusetts law can not be sustained. So do the two other principal authorities GLIB has cited. In PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, supra, to be sure, we *580sustained a state law requiring the proprietors of shopping malls to allow visitors to solicit signatures on political petitions without a showing that the shopping mall owners would otherwise prevent the beneficiaries of the law from reaching an audience. But we found in that case that the proprietors were running “a business establishment that is open to the public to come and go as they please,” that the solicitations would “not likely be identified with those of the owner,” and that the proprietors could “expressly disavow any connection with the message by simply posting signs in the area where the speakers or handbillers stand.” 447 U. S., at 87. Also, in Pacific Gas & Electric, supra, at 12, we noted that PruneYard did not involve “any concern that access to this area might affect the shopping center owner’s exercise of his own right to speak: the owner did not even allege that he objected to the content of the pamphlets ....” The principle of speaker’s autonomy was simply not threatened in that case.

New York State Club Assn, is also instructive by the contrast it provides. There, we turned back a facial challenge to a state antidiscrimination statute on the assumption that the expressive associational character of a dining club with over 400 members could be sufficiently attenuated to permit application of the law even to such a private organization, but we also recognized that the State did not prohibit exclusion of those whose views were at odds with positions espoused by the general club memberships. 487 U. S., at 13; see also Roberts, 468 U. S., at 627. In other words, although the association provided public benefits to which a State could ensure equal access, it was also engaged in expressive activity; compelled access to the benefit, which was upheld, did not trespass on the organization’s message itself. If we were to analyze this case strictly along those lines, GLIB would lose. Assuming the parade to be large enough and a source of benefits (apart from its expression) that would generally justify a mandated access provision, GLIB could *581nonetheless be refused admission as an expressive contingent with its own message just as readily as a private club could exclude an applicant whose manifest views were at odds with a position taken by the club’s existing members.

P> HH

Our holding today rests not on any particular view about the Council’s message but on the Nation’s commitment to protect freedom of speech. Disapproval of a private speaker’s statement does not legitimize use of the Commonwealth’s power to compel the speaker to alter the message by including one more acceptable to others. Accordingly, the judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

*643Chief Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioners are the Boy Scouts of America and the Monmouth Council, a division of the Boy Scouts of America (col*644lectively, Boy Scouts). The Boy Scouts is a private, not-for-profit organization engaged in instilling its system of values in young people. The Boy Scouts asserts that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the values it seeks to instill. Respondent is James Dale, a former Eagle Scout whose adult membership in the Boy Scouts was revoked when the Boy Scouts learned that he is an avowed homosexual and gay rights activist. The New Jersey Supreme Court held that New Jersey’s public accommodations law requires that the Boy Scouts readmit Dale. This ease presents the question whether applying New Jersey’s public accommodations law in this way violates the Boy Scouts’ First Amendment right of expressive association. We hold that it does.

I

James Dale entered Scouting in 1978 at the age of eight by joining Monmouth Council’s Cub Scout Pack 142. Dale became a Boy Scout in 1981 and remained a Scout until he turned 18. By all accounts, Dale was an exemplary Scout. In 1988, he achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, one of Scouting’s highest honors.

Dale applied for adult membership in the Boy Scouts in 1989. The Boy Scouts approved his application for the position of assistant scoutmaster of Troop 78. Around the same time, Dale left home to attend Rutgers University. After arriving at Rutgers, Dale first acknowledged to himself and *645others that he is gay. He quickly became involved with, and eventually became the eopresident of, the Rutgers University Lesbian/Gay Alliance. In 1990, Dale attended a seminar addressing the psychological and health needs of lesbian and gay teenagers. A newspaper covering the event interviewed Dale about his advocacy of homosexual teenagers’ need for gay role models. In early July 1990, the newspaper published the interview and Dale’s photograph over a caption identifying him as the eopresident of the Lesbian/ Gay Alliance.

Later that month, Dale received a letter from Monmouth Council Executive James Kay revoking his adult membership. Dale wrote to Kay requesting the reason for Monmouth Council’s decision. Kay responded by letter that the Boy Scouts “specifically forbid membership to homosexuals.” App. 137.

In 1992, Dale filed a complaint against the Boy Scouts in the New Jersey Superior Court. The complaint alleged that the Boy Scouts had violated New Jersey’s public accommodations statute and its common law by revoking Dale’s membership based solely on his sexual orientation. New Jersey’s public accommodations statute prohibits, among other things, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in places of public accommodation. N. J. Stat. Ann. §§ 10:5-4 and 10:5-5 (West Supp. 2000); see Appendix, infra, at 661-663.

The New Jersey Superior Court’s Chancery Division granted summary judgment in favor of the Boy Scouts. The court held that New Jersey’s public accommodations law was inapplicable because the Boy Scouts was not a place of public accommodation, and that, alternatively, the Boy Scouts is a distinctly private group exempted from coverage under New Jersey’s law. The court rejected Dale’s common-law claim, holding that New Jersey’s policy is embodied in the public accommodations law. The court also concluded that the Boy Scouts’ position in respect of active homosexuality was clear *646and held that the First Amendment freedom of expressive association prevented the government from forcing the Boy Scouts to accept Dale as an adult leader.

The New Jersey Superior Court’s Appellate Division affirmed the dismissal of Dale’s common-law claim, but otherwise reversed and remanded for further proceedings. 308 N. J. Super. 516, 706 A. 2d 270 (1998). It held that New Jersey’s public accommodations law applied to the Boy Scouts and that the Boy Scouts violated it. The Appellate Division rejected the Boy Scouts’ federal constitutional claims.

The New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Appellate Division. It held that the Boy Scouts was a place of public accommodation subject to the public accommodations law, that the organization was not exempt from the law under any of its express exceptions, and that the Boy Scouts violated the law by revoking Dale’s membership based on his avowed homosexuality. After considering the state-law issues, the court addressed the Boy Scouts’ claims that application of the public accommodations law in this ease violated its federal constitutional rights “‘to enter into and maintain . . . intimate or private relationships . . . [and] to associate for the purpose of engaging in protected speech.’” 160 N. J. 562, 605,734 A. 2d 1196, 1219 (1999) (quoting Board of Directors of Rotary Int’l v. Rotary Club of Duarte, 481 U. S. 537, 544 (1987)). With respect to the right to intimate association, the court concluded that the Boy Scouts’ “large size, nonseleetivity, inclusive rather than exclusive purpose, and practice of inviting or allowing nonmembers to attend meetings, establish that the organization is not ‘sufficiently personal or private to warrant constitutional protection’ under the freedom of intimate association.” 160 N. J., at 608-609, 734 A. 2d, at 1221 (quoting Duarte, supra, at 546). With respect to the right of expressive association, the court “agree[d] that Boy Scouts expresses a belief in moral values and uses its activities to encourage the moral development *647of its members.” 160 N. J., at 613, 734 A. 2d, at 1223. But the court concluded that it was “not persuaded . . . that a shared goal of Boy Scout members is to associate in order to preserve the view that homosexuality is immoral.” Ibid., 734 A. 2d, at 1223-1224 (internal quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, the court held “that Dale’s membership does not violate the Boy Scouts’ right of expressive association because his inclusion would not ‘affect in any significant way [the Boy Scouts’] existing members’ ability to carry out their various purposes.’” Id., at 615, 734 A. 2d, at 1225 (quoting Duarte, supra, at 548). The court also determined that New Jersey has a compelling interest in eliminating “the destructive consequences of discrimination from our society,” and that its public accommodations law abridges no more speech than is necessary to accomplish its purpose. 160 N. J., at 619-620, 734 A. 2d, at 1227-1228. Finally, the court addressed the Boy Scouts’ reliance on Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U. S. 557 (1995), in support of its claimed First Amendment right to exclude Dale. The court determined that Hurley did not require deciding the ease in favor of the Boy Scouts because “the reinstatement of Dale does not compel Boy Scouts to express any message.” 160 N. J., at 624, 734 A. 2d, at 1229.

We granted the Boy Seouts’ petition for certiorari to determine whether the application of New Jersey’s public accommodations law violated the First Amendment. 528 U. S. 1109 (2000).

II

In Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609, 622 (1984), we observed that “implicit in the right to engage in activities protected by the First Amendment” is “a corresponding right to associate with others in pursuit of a wide variety of political, social, economic, educational, religious, and cultural ends.” This right is crucial in preventing the majority from imposing its views on groups that would *648rather express other, perhaps unpopular, ideas. See ibid. (stating that protection of the right to expressive association is “especially important in preserving political and cultural diversity and in shielding dissident expression from suppression by the majority”). Government actions that may unconstitutionally burden this freedom may take many forms, one of which is “intrusion into the internal structure or affairs of an association” like a “regulation that forces the group to accept members it does not desire.” Id., at 623. Forcing a group to accept certain members may impair the ability of the group to express those views, and only those views, that it intends to express. Thus, “[fjreedom of association . . . plainly presupposes a freedom not to associate.” Ibid.

The forced inclusion of an unwanted person in a group infringes the group’s freedom of expressive association if the presence of that person affects in a significant way the group’s ability to advocate public or private viewpoints. New York State Club Assn., Inc. v. City of New York, 487 U. S. 1, 13 (1988). But the freedom of expressive association, like many freedoms, is not absolute. We have held that the freedom could be overridden “by regulations adopted to serve compelling state interests, unrelated to the suppression of ideas, that cannot be achieved through means significantly less restrictive of associational freedoms.” Roberts, supra, at 623.

To determine whether a group is protected by the First Amendment’s expressive associational right, we must determine whether the group engages in “expressive association.” The First Amendment’s protection of expressive association is not reserved for advocacy groups. But to come within its ambit, a group must engage in some form of expression, whether it be public or private.

Because this is a First Amendment ease where the ultimate conclusions of law are virtually inseparable from findings of fact, we are obligated to independently review the *649factual record to ensure that the state court’s judgment does not unlawfully intrude on free expression. See Hurley, supra, at 567-568. The record reveals the following. The Boy Scouts is a private, nonprofit organization. According to its mission statement:

“It is the mission of the Boy Scouts of America to serve others by helping to instill values in young people and, in other ways, to prepare them to make ethical choices over their lifetime in achieving their full potential.

“The values we strive to instill are based on those found in the Scout Oath and Law:

“Scout Oath

“On my honor I will do my best

“To do my duty to God and my country

“and to obey the Scout Law;

“To help other people at all times;

“To keep myself physically strong,

“mentally awake, and morally straight.

“Scout Law

“A Scout is:

“Trustworthy Obedient

“Loyal Cheerful

“Helpful Thrifty

“Friendly Brave

“Courteous Clean

“Kind Reverent.” App. 184.

Thus, the general mission of the Boy Scouts is clear: “[T]o instill values in young people.” Ibid. The Boy Scouts seeks to instill these values by having its adult leaders spend time with the youth members, instructing and engaging them in activities like camping, archery, and fishing. During the time spent with the youth members, the scoutmasters and assistant scoutmasters inculcate them with the Boy *650Scouts’ values — both expressly and by example. It seems indisputable that an association that seeks to transmit such a system of values engages in expressive activity. See Roberts, swpra, at 636 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (“Even the training of outdoor survival skills or participation in community service might become expressive when the activity is intended to develop good morals, reverence, patriotism, and a desire for self-improvement”).

Given that the Boy Scouts engages in expressive activity, we must determine whether the forced inclusion of Dale as an assistant scoutmaster would significantly affect the Boy Scouts’ ability to advocate public or private viewpoints. This inquiry necessarily requires us first to explore, to a limited extent, the nature of the Boy Scouts’ view of homosexuality.

The values the Boy Scouts seeks to instill are “based on” those listed in the Scout Oath and Law. App. 184. The Boy Scouts explains that the Scout Oath and Law provide “a positive moral code for living; they are a list of ‘do’s’ rather than ‘don’ts.’ ” Brief for Petitioners 3. The Boy Scouts asserts that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the values embodied in the Scout Oath and Law, particularly with the values represented by the terms “morally straight” and “clean.”

Obviously, the Scout Oath and Law do not expressly mention sexuality or sexual orientation. See supra, at 649. And the terms “morally straight” and “clean” are by no means self-defining. Different people would attribute to those terms very different meanings. For example, some people may believe that engaging in homosexual conduct is not at odds with being “morally straight” and “clean.” And others may believe that engaging in homosexual conduct is contrary to being “morally straight” and “clean.” The Boy Scouts says it falls within the latter category.

The New Jersey Supreme Court analyzed the Boy Scouts’ beliefs and found that the “exclusion of members solely on the basis of their sexual orientation is inconsistent with Boy *651Scouts’ commitment to a diverse and ‘representative’ membership ... [and] contradicts Boy Scouts’ overarching objective to reach ‘all eligible youth.’” 160 N. J., at 618, 734 A. 2d, at 1226. The court concluded that the exclusion of members like Dale “appears antithetical to the organization’s goals and philosophy.” Ibid. But our cases reject this sort of inquiry; it is not the role of the courts to reject a group’s expressed values because they disagree with those values or find them internally inconsistent. See Democratic Party of United States v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Follette, 450 U. S. 107, 124 (1981) (“[A]s is true of all expressions of First Amendment freedoms, the courts may not interfere on the ground that they view a particular expression as unwise or irrational”); see also Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707, 714 (1981) (“[Rjeligious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection”).

The Boy Scouts asserts that it “teach[es] that homosexual conduct is not morally straight,” Brief for Petitioners 39, and that it does “not want to promote homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior,” Reply Brief for Petitioners 5. We accept the Boy Scouts’ assertion. We need not inquire further to determine the nature of the Boy Scouts’ expression with respect to homosexuality. But because the record before us contains written evidence of the Boy Scouts’ viewpoint, we look to it as instructive, if only on the question of the sincerity of the professed beliefs.

A 1978 position statement to the Boy Scouts’ Executive Committee, signed by Downing B. Jenks, the President of the Boy Scouts, and Harvey L. Price, the Chief Scout Executive, expresses the Boy Scouts’ “official position” with regard to “homosexuality and Scouting”:

“Q. May an individual who openly declares himself to be a homosexual be a volunteer Scout leader?

*652“A. No. The Boy Scouts of America is a private, membership organization and leadership therein is a privilege and not a right. We do not believe that homosexuality and leadership in Scouting are appropriate. We will continue to select only those who in our judgment meet our standards and qualifications for leadership.” App. 453-454.

Thus, at least as of 1978 — the year James Dale entered Scouting — the official position of the Boy Scouts was that avowed homosexuals were not to be Scout leaders.

A position statement promulgated by the Boy Scouts in 1991 (after Dale’s membership was revoked but before this litigation was filed) also supports its current view:

‘We believe that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the requirement in the Scout Oath that a Scout be morally straight and in the Scout Law that a Scout be clean in word and deed, and that homosexuals do not provide a desirable role model for Scouts.” Id., at 457.

This position statement was redrafted numerous times but its core message remained consistent. For example, a 1993 position statement, the most recent in the record, reads, in part:

“The Boy Scouts of America has always reflected the expectations that Scouting families have had for the organization. We do not believe that homosexuals provide a role model consistent with these expectations. Accordingly, we do not allow for the registration of avowed homosexuals as members or as leaders of the BSA.” Id., at 461.

The Boy Scouts publicly expressed its views with respect to homosexual conduct by its assertions in prior litigation. For example, throughout a California ease with similar facts filed in the early 1980’s, the Boy Scouts consistently asserted the same position with respect to homosexuality that it asserts today. See Curran v. Mount Diablo Council of Boy *653Scouts of America, No. C-365529 (Cal. Super. Ct., July 25, 1991); 48 Cal. App. 4th 670, 29 Cal. Rptr. 2d 580 (1994); 17 Cal. 4th 670,952 P. 2d 218 (1998). We cannot doubt that the Boy Scouts sincerely holds this view.

We must then determine whether Dale’s presence as an assistant scoutmaster would significantly burden the Boy Scouts’ desire to not “promote homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior.” Reply Brief for Petitioners 5. As we give deference to an association’s assertions regarding the nature of its expression, we must also give deference to an association’s view of what would impair its expression. See, e. g., La Follette, supra, at 123-124 (considering whether a Wisconsin law burdened the National Party’s assoeiational rights and stating that “a State, or a court, may not constitutionally substitute its own judgment for that of the Party”). That is not to say that an expressive association can erect a shield against antidiscrimination laws simply by asserting that mere acceptance of a member from a particular group would impair its message. But here Dale, by his own admission, is one of a group of gay Scouts who have “become leaders in their community and are open and honest about their sexual orientation.” App. 11. Dale was the copresident of a gay and lesbian organization at college and remains a gay rights activist. Dale’s presence in the Boy Scouts would, at the very least, force the organization to send a message, both to the youth members and the world, that the Boy Scouts accepts homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior.

Hurley is illustrative on this point. There we considered whether the application of Massachusetts’ public accommodations law to require the organizers of a private St. Patrick’s Day parade to include among the marchers an Irish-American gay, lesbian, and bisexual group, GLIB, violated the parade organizers’ First Amendment rights. We noted that the parade organizers did not wish to exclude the GLIB members because of their sexual orientations, but because they wanted to march behind a GLIB banner. We observed:

*654“[A] contingent marching behind the organization’s banner would at least bear witness to the fact that some Irish are gay, lesbian, or bisexual, and the presence of the organized marchers would suggest their view that people of their sexual orientations have as much claim to unqualified social acceptance as heterosexuals .... The parade’s organizers may not believe these facts about Irish sexuality to be so, or they may object to unqualified social acceptance of gays and lesbians or have some other reason for wishing to keep GLIB’s message out of the parade. But whatever the reason, it boils down to the choice of a speaker not to propound a particular point of view, and that choice is presumed to lie beyond the government’s power to control.” 515 U. S., at 574-575.

Here, we have found that the Boy Scouts believes that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the values it seeks to instill in its youth members; it will not “promote homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior.” Reply Brief for Petitioners 5. As the presence of GLIB in Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day parade would have interfered with the parade organizers’ choice not to propound a particular point of view, the presence of Dale as an assistant scoutmaster would just as surely interfere with the Boy Scout’s choice not to propound a point of view contrary to its beliefs.

The New Jersey Supreme Court determined that the Boy Scouts’ ability to disseminate its message was not significantly affected by the forced inclusion of Dale as an assistant scoutmaster because of the following findings:

“Boy Scout members do not associate for the purpose of disseminating the belief that homosexuality is immoral; Boy Scouts discourages its leaders from disseminating any views on sexual issues; and Boy Scouts includes sponsors and members who subscribe to different views *655in respect of homosexuality.” 160 N. J., at 612, 734 A. 2d, at 1223.

We disagree with the New Jersey Supreme Court’s conclusion drawn from these findings.

First, associations do not have to associate for the “purpose” of disseminating a certain message in order to be entitled to the protections of the First Amendment. An association must merely engage in expressive activity that could be impaired in order to be entitled to protection. For example, the purpose of the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Hurley was not to espouse any views about sexual orientation, but we held that the parade organizers had a right to exclude certain participants nonetheless.

Second, even if the Boy Scouts discourages Scout leaders from disseminating views on sexual issues — a fact that the Boy Scouts disputes with contrary evidence — the First Amendment protects the Boy Scouts’ method of expression. If the Boy Scouts wishes Scout leaders to avoid questions of sexuality and teach only by example, this fact does not negate the sincerity of its belief discussed above.

Third, the First Amendment simply does not require that every member of a group agree on every issue in order for the group’s policy to be “expressive association.” The Boy Scouts takes an official position with respect to homosexual conduct, and that is sufficient for First Amendment purposes. In this same vein, Dale makes much of the claim that the Boy Scouts does not revoke the membership of heterosexual Scout leaders that openly disagree with the Boy Scouts’ policy on sexual orientation. But if this is true, it is irrelevant.1 The presence of an avowed homosexual and gay *656rights activist in an assistant scoutmaster’s uniform sends a distinctly different message from the presence of a heterosexual assistant scoutmaster who is on record as disagreeing with Boy Scouts policy. The Boy Scouts has a First Amendment right to choose to send one message but not the other. The fact that the organization does not trumpet its views from the housetops, or that it tolerates dissent within its ranks, does not mean that its views receive no First Amendment protection.

Having determined that the Boy Scouts is an expressive association and that the forced inclusion of Dale would significantly affect its expression, we inquire whether the application of New Jersey’s public accommodations law to require that the Boy Scouts accept Dale as an assistant scoutmaster runs afoul of the Scouts’ freedom of expressive association. We conclude that it does.

State public accommodations laws were originally enacted to prevent discrimination in traditional places of public accommodation — like inns and trains. See, e.g., Hurley, supra, at 571-572 (explaining the history of Massachusetts’ public accommodations law); Romer v. Evans, 517 U. S. 620, 627-629 (1996) (describing the evolution of public accommodations laws). Over time, the public accommodations laws have expanded to cover more places.2 New Jersey’s statu*657tory definition of “ ‘[a] place of public accommodation’ ” is extremely broad. The term is said to “include, but not be limited to,” a list of over 50 types of places. N. J. Stat. Ann. § 10:5 — 5(Z) (West Supp. 2000); see Appendix, infra, at 661-663. Many on the list are what one would expect to be places where the public is invited. For example, the statute includes as places of public accommodation taverns, restaurants, retail shops, and public libraries. But the statute also includes places that often may not carry with them open invitations to the public, like summer camps and roof gardens. In this ease, the New Jersey Supreme Court went a step further and applied its public accommodations law to a private entity without even attempting to tie the term “place” to a physical location.3 As the definition of “public accommodation” has expanded from clearly commercial entities, such as restaurants, bars, and hotels, to membership organizations such as the Boy Scouts, the potential for conflict between state public accommodations laws and the First Amendment rights of organizations has increased.

We recognized in cases such as Roberts and Duarte that States have a compelling interest in eliminating discrimination against women in public accommodations. But in each of these cases we went on to conclude that the enforcement of these statutes would not materially interfere with the ideas that the organization sought to express. In Roberts, we said “[i]ndeed, the Jayeees has failed to demonstrate ... *658any serious burdens on the male members' freedom of expressive association.” 468 U. S., at 626. In Duarte, we said:

“impediments to the exercise of one’s right to choose one’s associates can violate the right of association protected by the First Amendment. In this case, however, the evidence fails to demonstrate that admitting women to Rotary Clubs will affect in any significant way the existing members’ ability to carry out their various purposes.” 481 U. S., at 548 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

We thereupon concluded in each of these cases that the organizations’ First Amendment rights were not violated by the application of the States’ public accommodations laws.

In Hurley, we said that public accommodations laws “are well within the State’s usual power to enact when a legislature has reason to believe that a given group is the target of discrimination, and they do not, as a general matter, violate the First or Fourteenth Amendments.” 515 U. S., at 572. But we went on to note that in that case “the Massachusetts [public accommodations] law has been applied in a peculiar way” because “any contingent of protected individuals with a message would have the right to participate in petitioners’ speech, so that the communication produced by the private organizers would be shaped by all those protected by the law who wished to join in with some expressive demonstration of their own.” Id., at 572-573. And in the associational freedom cases such as Roberts, Duarte, and New York State Club Assn., after finding a compelling state interest, the Court went on to examine whether or not the application of the state law would impose any “serious burden” on the organization’s rights of expressive association. So in these cases, the associational interest in freedom of expression has *659been set on one side of the scale, and the State’s interest on the other.

Dale contends that we should apply the intermediate standard of review enunciated in United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367 (1968), to evaluate the competing interests. There the Court enunciated a four-part test for review of a governmental regulation that has only an incidental effect on protected speech — in that case the symbolic burning of a draft card. A law prohibiting the destruction of draft cards only incidentally affects the free speech rights of those who happen to use a violation of that law as a symbol of protest. But New Jersey’s public accommodations law directly and immediately affects assoeiational rights, in this ease associational rights that enjoy First Amendment protection. Thus, O’Brien is inapplicable.

In Hurley, we applied traditional First Amendment analysis to hold that the application of the Massachusetts public accommodations law to a parade violated the First Amendment rights of the parade organizers. Although we did not explicitly deem the parade in Hurley an expressive association, the analysis we applied there is similar to the analysis we apply here. We have already concluded that a state requirement that the Boy Scouts retain Dale as an assistant scoutmaster would significantly burden the organization’s right to oppose or disfavor , homosexual conduct. The state interests embodied in New Jersey’s public accommodations law do not justify such a severe intrusion on the Boy Scouts’ rights to freedom of expressive association. That being the case, we hold that the First Amendment prohibits the State from imposing such a requirement through the application of its public accommodations law.4

*660Justice Stevens’ dissent makes much of its observation that the public perception of homosexuality in this country has changed. See post, at 699-700. Indeed, it appears that homosexuality has gained greater societal acceptance. See ibid. But this is scarcely an argument for denying First Amendment protection to those who refuse to accept these views. The First Amendment protects expression, be it of the popular variety or not. See, e. g., Texas v. Johnson, 491 U. S. 397 (1989) (holding that Johnson’s conviction for burning the American flag violates the First Amendment); Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444 (1969) (per curiam) (holding that a Ku Klux Klan leader’s conviction for advocating unlawfulness as a means of political reform violates the First Amendment). And the fact that an idea may be embraced and advocated by increasing numbers of people is all the more reason to protect the First Amendment rights of those who wish to voice a different view.

Justice Stevens’ extolling of Justice Brandéis’ comments in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U. S. 262, 311 (1932) (dissenting opinion); see post, at 664, 700, confuses two entirely different principles. In New State Ice, the Court struck down an Oklahoma regulation prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and distribution of ice without a license. Justice Brandéis, a champion of state experimentation in the economic realm, dissented. But Justice Brandéis was never a champion of state experimentation in the suppression of free speech. To the contrary, his First Amendment commentary provides compelling support for the Court’s opinion in this case. In speaking of the Founders of this Nation, Justice Brandéis emphasized that they “believed that free*661dom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth.” Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 375 (1927) (concurring opinion). He continued:

“Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law — the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.” Id., at 375-376.

We are not, as we must not be, guided by our views of whether the Boy Scouts’ teachings with respect to homosexual conduct are right or wrong; public or judicial disapproval of a tenet of an organization’s expression does not justify the State’s effort to compel the organization to accept members where such acceptance would derogate from the organization’s expressive message. “While the law is free to promote all sorts of conduct in place of harmful behavior, it is not free to interfere with speech for no better reason than promoting an approved message or discouraging a disfavored one, however enlightened either purpose may strike the government.” Hurley, 515 U. S., at 579.

The judgment of the New Jersey Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT

N. J. Stat. Ann. § 10:5-4 (West Supp. 2000). “Obtaining employment, accommodations and privileges without discrimination; civil right

“All persons shall have the opportunity to obtain employment, and to obtain all the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of any place of public aeeommoda*662tion, publicly assisted housing accommodation, and other real property without discrimination because of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, affectional or sexual orientation, familial status, or sex, subject only to conditions and limitations applicable alike to all persons. This opportunity is recognized as and declared to be a civil right.”

N. J. Stat. Ann. § 10:5-5 (West Supp. 2000). “Definitions

“As used in this act, unless a different meaning clearly appears from the context:

“l. ‘A place of public accommodation’ shall include, but not be limited to: any tavern, roadhouse, hotel, motel, trailer camp, summer camp, day camp, or resort camp, whether for entertainment of transient guests or accommodation of those seeking health, recreation or rest; any producer, manufacturer, wholesaler, distributor, retail shop, store, establishment, or concession dealing with goods or services of any kind; any restaurant, eating house, or place where food is sold for consumption on the premises; any place maintained for the sale of ice cream, ice and fruit preparations or their derivatives, soda water or confections, or where any beverages of any kind are retailed for consumption on the premises; any garage, any public conveyance operated on land or water, or in the air, any stations and terminals thereof; any bathhouse, boardwalk, or seashore accommodation; any auditorium, meeting place, or hall; any theatre, motion-picture house, music hall, roof garden, skating rink, swimming pool, amusement and recreation park, fair, bowling alley, gymnasium, shooting gallery, billiard and pool parlor, or other place of amusement; any comfort station; any dispensary, clinic or hospital; any public library; any kindergarten, primary and secondary school, trade or business school, high school, academy, college and university, or any educational institution under the supervision of the State Board of Education, or the Commissioner of Education of the State of New Jersey. *663Nothing herein contained shall be construed to include or to apply to any institution, bona fide club, or place of accommodation, which is in its nature distinctly private; nor shall anything herein contained apply to any educational facility operated or maintained by a bona fide religious or sectarian institution, and the right of a natural parent or one in loco parentis to direct the education and upbringing of a child under his control is hereby affirmed; nor shall anything herein contained be construed to bar any private secondary or post secondary school from using in good faith criteria other than race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry or af-fectional or sexual orientation in the admission of students.”

Justice Stevens,

with whom Justice Souter, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer join, dissenting.

New Jersey “prides itself on judging each individual by his or her merits” and on being “in the vanguard in the fight to eradicate the cancer of unlawful discrimination of all types from our society.” Peper v. Princeton Univ. Bd. of Trustees, 77 N. J. 55, 80, 389 A. 2d 465, 478 (1978). Since 1945, it has had a law against discrimination. The law broadly protects the opportunity of all persons to obtain the advantages and privileges “of any place of public accommodation.” N. J. Stat. Ann. § 10:5-4 (West Supp. 2000). The New Jersey Supreme Court’s construction of the statutory definition of a “place of public accommodation” has given its statute a more expansive coverage than most similar state statutes. And as amended in 1991, the law prohibits discrimination on the basis of nine different traits including an individual’s “sexual orientation.”1 The question in this case is whether that ex*664pansive construction trenches on the federal constitutional rights of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA).

Because every state law prohibiting discrimination is designed to replace prejudice with principle, Justice Brandéis’ comment on the States’ right to experiment with “things social” is directly applicable to this ease.

“To stay experimentation in things social and economic is a grave responsibility. Denial of the right to experiment may be fraught with serious consequences to the Nation. It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country. This Court has the power to prevent an experiment. We may strike down the statute which embodies it on the ground that, in our opinion, the measure is arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable. We have power to do this, because the due process clause has been held by the Court applicable to matters of substantive law as well as to matters of procedure. But in the exercise of this high power, we must be ever on our guard, lest we erect our prejudices into legal principles. If we would guide by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold.” New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U. S. 262, 311 (1932) (dissenting opinion).

In its “exercise of this high power” today, the Court does not accord this “courageous State” the respect that is its due.

The majority holds that New Jersey’s law violates BSA’s right to associate and its right to free speech. But that law *665does not “impos[e] any serious burdens” on BSA’s "collective effort on behalf of [its] shared goals,” Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609, 622, 626-627 (1984), nor does it force BSA to communicate any message that it does not wish to endorse. New Jersey’s law, therefore, abridges no constitutional right of BSA.

I

James Dale joined BSA as a Cub Scout in 1978, when he was eight years old. Three years later he became a Boy Scout, and he remained a member until his 18th birthday. Along the way, he earned 25 merit badges, was admitted into the prestigious Order of the Arrow, and was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout — an honor given to only three percent of all Scouts. In 1989, BSA approved his application to be an Assistant Scoutmaster.

On July 19, 1990, after more than 12 years of active and honored participation, the BSA sent Dale a letter advising him of the revocation of his membership. The letter stated that membership in BSA “is a privilege” that may be denied "whenever there is a concern that an individual may not meet the high standards of membership which the BSA seeks to provide for American youth.” App. 185. Expressing surprise at.his sudden expulsion, Dale sent a letter requesting an explanation of the decision. Id., at 186. In response, BSA sent him a second letter stating that the grounds for the decision “are the standards for leadership established by the Boy Scouts of America, which specifically forbid membership to homosexuals.” Id., at 137. At that time, no such standard had been publicly expressed by BSA.

In this case, BSA contends that it teaches the young boys who are Scouts that homosexuality is immoral. Consequently, it argues, it would violate its right to associate to force it to admit homosexuals as members, as doing so would be at odds with its own shared goals and values. This contention, quite plainly, requires us to look at what, exactly, are the values that BSA actually teaches.

*666BSA’s mission statement reads as follows: “It is the mission of the Boy Seouts of America to serve others by helping to instill values in young people and, in other ways, to prepare them to make ethical choices over their lifetime in achieving their full potential.” Id., at 184. Its federal charter declares its purpose is “to promote, through organization, and cooperation with other agencies, the ability of boys to do things for themselves and others, to train them in scoutcraft, and to teach them patriotism, courage, self-reliance, and kindred values, using the methods which were in common use by Boy Scouts on June 15, 1916.” 86 U. S. C. §23; see also App. 315-316. BSA describes itself as having a “representative membership,” which it defines as “boy membership [that] reflects proportionately the characteristics of the boy population of its service area.” Id., at 65. In particular, the group emphasizes that “[n]either the charter nor the bylaws of the Boy Scouts of America permits the exclusion of any boy.... To meet these responsibilities we have made a commitment that our membership shall be representative of all the population in every community, district, and council.” Id., at 66-67 (emphasis in original).

To instill its shared values, BSA has adopted a “Scout Oath” and a “Scout Law” setting forth its central tenets. For example, the Scout Law requires a member to promise, among other things, that he will be “obedient.” Accompanying definitions for the terms found in the Oath and Law are provided in the Boy Scout Handbook and the Scoutmaster Handbook. For instance, the Boy Scout Handbook defines “obedient” as follows:

“A Scout is OBEDIENT. A Scout follows the rules of his family, school, and troop. He obeys the laws of his community and country. If he thinks these rules and laws are unfair, he tries to have them changed in an orderly manner rather than disobey them.” Id., at 188 (emphasis deleted).

*667To bolster its claim that its shared goals include teaching that homosexuality is wrong, BSA directs our attention to two terms appearing in the Scout Oath and Law. The first is the phrase “morally straight,” which appears in the Oath (“On my honor I will do my best ... To keep myself . . . morally straight”); the second term is the word “clean,” which appears in a list of 12 characteristics together constituting the Scout Law.

The Boy Scout Handbook defines “morally straight,” as such:

“To be a person of strong character, guide your life with honesty, purity, and justice. Respect and defend the rights of all people. Your relationships with others should be honest and open. Be clean in your speech and actions, and faithful in your religious beliefs. The values you follow as a Scout will help you become virtuous and self-reliant.” Id,., at 218 (emphasis deleted).

The Scoutmaster Handbook emphasizes these points about being “morally straight”:

“In any consideration of moral fitness, a key word has to be ‘courage.’ A boy’s courage to do what his head and his heart tell him is right. And the courage to refuse to do what his heart and his head say is wrong. Moral fitness, like emotional fitness, will clearly present opportunities for wise guidance by an alert Scoutmaster.” Id., at 239-240.

As for the term “clean,” the Boy Scout Handbook offers the following:

“A Scout is CLEAN. A Scout keeps his body and mind fit and clean. He chooses the company of those who live by these same ideals. He helps keep his home and community clean.

“Yoti never need to be ashamed of dirt that will wash off. If you play hard and work hard you can’t help get*668ting dirty. But when the game is over or the work is done, that kind of dirt disappears with soap and water. “There’s another kind of dirt that won’t come off by washing. It is the kind that shows up in foul language and harmful thoughts.

“Swear words, profanity, and dirty stories are weapons that ridicule other people and hurt their feelings. The same is true of racial slurs and jokes making fun of ethnic groups or people with physical or mental limitations. A Scout knows there is no kindness or honor in such mean-spirited behavior. He avoids it in his own words and deeds. He defends those who are targets of insults.” Id., at 225-226 (emphasis in original); see also id., at 189.2

It is plain as the light of day that neither one of these principles — “morally straight” and “clean” — says the slightest thing about homosexuality. Indeed, neither term in the Boy *669Scouts’ Law and Oath expresses any position whatsoever on sexual matters.

BSA’s published guidance on that topic underscores this point. Scouts, for example, are directed to receive their sex education at home or in school, but not from the organization: “Your parents or guardian or a sex education teacher should give you the facts about sex that you must know.” Boy Scout Handbook (1992) (reprinted in App. 211). To be sure, Scouts are not forbidden from asking their Scoutmaster about issues of a sexual nature, but Scoutmasters are, literally, the last person Scouts are encouraged to ask: “If you have questions about growing up, about relationships, sex, or making good decisions, ask. Talk with your parents, religious leaders, teachers, or Scoutmaster.” Ibid. Moreover, Scoutmasters are specifically directed to steer curious adolescents to other sources of information:

“If Scouts ask for information regarding... sexual activity, answer honestly and factually, but stay within your realm of expertise and comfort. If a Scout has serious concerns that you cannot answer, refer him to his family, religious leader, doctor, or other professional.” Scoutmaster Handbook (1990) (reprinted in App. 264).

More specifically, BSA has set forth a number of rules for Scoutmasters when these types of issues come up:

“You may have boys asking you for information or advice about sexual matters....

“How should you handle such matters?

“Rule number 1: You do not undertake to instruct Scouts, in any formalized manner, in the subject of sex and family life. The reasons are that it is not construed to be Scouting’s proper area, and that you are probably not well qualified to do this.

“Rule number 2: If Scouts come to you to ask questions or to seek advice, you would give it within your compe-*670tenee. A boy who appears to he asking about sexual intercourse, however, may really only be worried about his pimples, so it is well to find out just what information is needed.

“Rule number 3: You should refer boys with sexual problems to persons better qualified than you [are] to handle them. If the boy has a spiritual leader or a doctor who can deal with them, he should go there. If such persons are not available, you may just have to do the best you can. But don’t try to play a highly professional role. And at the other extreme, avoid passing the buck.” Scoutmaster Handbook (1972) (reprinted in App. 546-547) (emphasis added).

In light of BSA’s self-proclaimed ecumenism, furthermore, it is even more difficult to discern any shared goals or common moral stance on homosexuality. Insofar as religious matters are concerned, BSA’s bylaws state that it is “absolutely nonsectarian in its attitude toward... religious training.” Id., at 362. “The BSA does not define what constitutes duty to God or the practice of religion. This is the responsibility of parents and religious leaders.” Id., at 76. In fact, many diverse religious organizations sponsor local Boy Scout troops. Brief for Petitioners 3. Because a number of religious groups do not view homosexuality as immoral or wrong and reject discrimination against homosexuals,3 it is exceedingly difficult to believe that BSA none*671theless adopts a single particular religious or moral philosophy when it comes to sexual orientation. This is especially so in light of the fact that Scouts are advised to seek guidance on sexual matters from their religious leaders (and Scoutmasters are told to refer Scouts to them);4 BSA surely is aware that some religions do not teach that homosexuality is wrong.

II

The Court seeks to fill the void by pointing to a statement of “policies and procedures relating to homosexuality and Scouting,” App. 453, signed by BSA’s President and Chief Scout Executive in 1978 and addressed to the members of the Executive Committee of the national organization. Ante, at 651-652. The letter says that the BSA does “not believe that homosexuality and leadership in Scouting are appropriate.” App. 454. But when the entire 1978 letter is read, BSA’s position is far more equivocal:

“4. Q. May an individual who openly declares himself to be a homosexual be employed by the Boy Scouts of America as a professional or non-professional?

“A. Boy Scouts of America does not knowingly employ homosexuals as professionals or non-professionals. We are unaware of any present laws which would prohibit this policy.

*672“5. Q. Should a professional or non-professional individual who openly declares himself to be a homosexual be terminated?

“A. Yes, in the absence of any law to the contrary. At the present time we are unaware of any statute or ordinance in the United States which prohibits discrimination against individual’s employment upon the basis of homosexuality. In the event that such a law was applicable, it would be necessary for the Boy Scouts of America to obey it, in this case as in Paragraph I above. It is our position, however, that homosexuality and professional or non-professional employment in Scouting are not appropriate.” Id., at 454-455 (emphasis added).

Four aspects of the 1978 policy statement are relevant to the proper disposition of this case. First, at most this letter simply adopts an exclusionary membership policy. But simply adopting such a policy has never been considered sufficient, by itself, to prevail on a right to associate claim. See infra, at 678-685.

Second, the 1978 policy was never publicly expressed — unlike, for example, the Scout’s duty to be “obedient.” It was an internal memorandum, never circulated beyond the few members of BSA’s Executive Committee. It remained, in effect, a secret Boy Scouts policy. Far from claiming any intent to express an idea that would be burdened by the presence of homosexuals, BSA’s public posture — to the world and to the Scouts themselves — remained what it had always been: one of tolerance, welcoming all classes of boys and young men. In this respect, BSA’s claim is even weaker than those we have rejected in the past. See ibid.

Third, it is apparent that the draftsmen of the policy statement foresaw the possibility that laws against discrimination might one day be amended to protect homosexuals from employment discrimination. Their statement clearly provided that, in the event such a law conflicted with their policy, a Scout’s duty to be “obedient” and “obe[y] the laws,” even if “he thinks [the laws] are unfair,” would prevail in such a *673contingency. See supra, at 666. In 1978, however, BSA apparently did not consider it to be a serious possibility that a State might one day characterize the Scouts as a “place of public accommodation” with a duty to open its membership to all qualified individuals. The portions of the statement dealing with membership simply assume that membership in the Scouts is a “privilege” that BSA is free to grant or to withhold. The statement does not address the question whether the publicly proclaimed duty to obey the law should prevail over the private discriminatory policy if, and when, a conflict between the two should arise — as it now has in New Jersey. At the very least, then, the statement reflects no unequivocal view on homosexuality. Indeed, the statement suggests that an appropriate way for BSA to preserve its unpublished exclusionary policy would include an open and forthright attempt to seek an amendment of New Jersey’s statute. (“If he thinks these rules and laws are unfair, he tries to have them changed in an orderly manner rather than disobey them.”)

Fourth, the 1978 statement simply says that homosexuality is not “appropriate.” It makes no effort to connect that statement to a shared goal or expressive activity of the Boy Scouts. Whatever values BSA seeks to instill in Scouts, the idea that homosexuality is not “appropriate” appears entirely unconnected to, and is mentioned nowhere in, the myriad of publicly declared values and creeds of the BSA. That idea does not appear to be among any of the principles actually taught to Scouts. Rather, the 1978 policy appears to be no more than a private statement of a few BSA executives that the organization wishes to exclude gays — and that wish has nothing to do with any expression BSA actually engages in.

The majority also relies on four other policy statements that were issued between 1991 and 1993.5 All of them were *674written and issued after BSA revoked Dale’s membership. Accordingly, they have little, if any, relevance to the legal question before this Court.6 In any event, they do not bolster BSA’s claim.

In 1991, BSA issued two statements both stating: “We believe that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the requirement in the Scout Oath that a Scout be morally straight and in the Scout Law that a Scout be clean in word and deed, and that homosexuals do not provide a desirable role model for Scouts.” App. 457-458. A third statement issued in 1992 was substantially the same. Id., at 459. By 1998, however, the policy had changed:

“BSA Position

“The Boy Scouts of America has always reflected the expectations that Scouting families have had for the organization.

“We do not believe that homosexuals provide a role model consistent with these expectations.

“Accordingly, we do not allow for the registration of avowed homosexuals as members or as leaders of the BSA.” Id., at 461.

Aside from the fact that these statements were all issued after Dale’s membership was revoked, there are four important points relevant to them. First, while the 1991 and 1992 *675statements tried to tie BSA’s exclusionary policy to the meaning of the Scout Oath and Law, the 1998 statement abandoned that effort. Rather, BSA’s 1993 homosexual exclusion policy was based on its view that including gays would be contrary to “the expectations that Scouting families have had for the organization.” Ibid. Instead of linking its policy to its central tenets or shared goals — to teach certain definitions of what it means to be “morally straight” and “clean” — BSA chose instead to justify its policy on the “expeetatio[n]” that its members preferred to exclude homosexuals. The 1998 policy statement, in other words, was not based on any expressive activity or on any moral view about homosexuality. It was simply an exclusionary membership policy, similar to those we have held insufficient in the past. See infra, at 678-685.

Second, even during the brief period in 1991 and 1992, when BSA tried to connect its exclusion of homosexuals to its definition of terms found in the Oath and Law, there is no evidence that Scouts were actually taught anything about homosexuality’s alleged inconsistency with those principles. Beyond the single sentence in these policy statements, there is no indication of any shared goal of teaching that homosexuality is incompatible with being “morally straight” and “clean.” Neither BSA’s mission statement nor its official membership policy was altered; no Boy Scout or Scoutmaster Handbook was amended to reflect the policy statement; no lessons were imparted to Scouts; no change was made to BSA’s policy on limiting discussion of sexual matters; and no effort was made to restrict acceptable religious affiliations to those that condemn homosexuality. In short, there is no evidence that this view was part of any collective effort to foster beliefs about homosexuality.7

*676Third, BSA never took any clear and unequivocal position on homosexuality. Though the 1991 and 1992 policies state one interpretation of “morally straight” and “clean,” the group’s published definitions appearing in the Boy Scout and Scoutmaster Handbooks take quite another view. And BSA’s broad religious tolerance combined with its declaration that sexual matters are not its “proper area” render its views on the issue equivocal at best and incoherent at worst. We have never held, however, that a group can throw together any mixture of contradictory positions and then invoke the right to associate to defend any one of those views. At a minimum, a group seeking to prevail over an antidis-crimination law must adhere to a clear and unequivocal view.

Fourth, at most the 1991 and 1992 statements declare only that BSA believed “homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the requirement in the Scout Oath that a Scout be morally straight and in the Scout Law that a Scout be clean in word and deed.” App. 457 (emphasis added). But New Jersey’s law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. And when Dale was expelled from the Boy Scouts, BSA said it did so because of his sexual orientation, not because of his sexual conduct.8

It is clear, then* that nothing in these policy statements supports BSA’s claim. The only policy written before the revocation of Dale’s membership was an equivocal, undisclosed statement that evidences no connection between the group’s discriminatory intentions and its expressive interests. The later policies demonstrate a brief — -though ulti*677mately abandoned — attempt to tie BSA’s exclusion to its expression, but other than a single sentence, BSA fails to show that it ever taught Scouts that homosexuality is not “morally straight” or “clean,” or that such a view was part of the group’s collective efforts to foster a belief. Furthermore, BSA’s policy statements fail to establish any clear, consistent, and unequivocal position on homosexuality. Nor did BSA have any reason to think Dale’s sexual conduct, as opposed to his orientation, was contrary to the group’s values.

BSA’s inability to make its position clear and its failure to connect its alleged policy to its expressive activities is highly significant. By the time Dale was expelled from the Boy Scouts in 1990, BSA had already been engaged in several suits under a variety of state antidiscrimination public accommodation laws challenging various aspects of its membership policy.9 Indeed, BSA had filed amicus briefs before this Court in two earlier right to associate cases (Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609 (1984), and Board of Directors of Rotary Int’l v. Rotary Club of Duarte, 481U. S. 537 (1987)) pointing to these very cases; it was clearly on notice by 1990 that it might well be subjected to state public accommodation antidiscrimination laws, and that a court might one day reject its claimed right to associate. Yet it took no steps prior to Dale’s expulsion to clarify how its exclusivity was connected to its expression. It speaks volumes about the credibility of BSA’s claim to a shared goal that homosexuality is incompatible with Scouting that since at least 1984 it had been aware of this issue — indeed, concerned enough to twice file amicus briefs before this *678Court — yet it did nothing in the intervening six years (or even in the years after Dale’s explusion) to explain clearly and openly why the presence of homosexuals would affect its expressive activities, or to make the view of “morally straight” and “clean” taken in its 1991 and 1992 policies a part of the values actually instilled in Scouts through the Handbook, lessons, or otherwise.

Ill

BSA’s claim finds no support in our cases. We have recognized “a right to associate for the purpose of engaging in those activities protected by the First Amendment— speech, assembly, petition for the redress of grievances, and the exercise of religion.” Roberts, 468 U. S., at 618. And we have acknowledged that “when the State interferes with individuals’ selection of those with whom they wish to join in a common endeavor, freedom of association . . . may be implicated.” Ibid. But “[t]he right to associate for expressive purposes is not . . . absolute”; rather, “the nature and degree of constitutional protection afforded freedom of association may vary depending on the extent to which . . . the constitutionally protected liberty is at stake in a given ease.” Id., at 628, 618. Indeed, the right to associate does not mean “that in every setting in which individuals exercise some discrimination in choosing associates, their selective process of inclusion and exclusion is protected by the Constitution.” New York State Club Assn., Inc. v. City of New York, 487 U. S. 1,13 (1988). For example, we have routinely and easily rejected assertions of this right by expressive organizations with discriminatory membership policies, such as private schools,10 law *679firms,11 and labor organizations.12 In fact, until today, we have never once found a claimed right to associate in the selection of members to prevail in the face of a State’s anti-discrimination law. To the contrary, we have squarely held that a State’s antidiscrimination law does not violate a group’s right to associate simply because the law conflicts with that group’s exclusionary membership policy.

In Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609 (1984), we addressed just such a conflict. The Jaycees was a nonprofit membership organization “‘designed to inculcate in the individual membership ... a spirit of genuine Americanism and civic interest, and ... to provide ... an avenue for intelligent participation by young men in the affairs of their community.’” Id., at 612-613. The organization was divided into local chapters, described as “ ‘young men’s organization[s],’ ” in which regular membership was restricted to males between the ages of 18 and 35. Id., at 613. But Minnesota’s Human Rights Act, which applied to the Jaycees, made it unlawful to “‘deny any person the full and equal *680enjoyment of ... a place of public accommodation because of . . . sex.’” Id., at 615. The Jaycees, however, claimed that applying the law to it violated its right to associate — in particular its right to maintain its selective membership policy.

We rejected that claim. Cautioning that the right to associate is not “absolute,” we held that “[[infringements on that right may be justified by regulations adopted to serve compelling state interests, unrelated to the suppression of ideas, that cannot be achieved through means significantly less restrictive of associational freedoms.” Id., at 623. We found the State’s purpose of eliminating discrimination is a compelling state interest that is unrelated to the suppression of ideas. Id., at 623-626. We also held that Minnesota’s law is the least restrictive means of achieving that interest. The Jaycees had “failed to demonstrate that the Act imposes any serious burdens on the male members’ freedom of expressive association.” Id., at 626. Though the Jaycees had “taken public positions on a number of diverse issues, [and]... regularly engage in a variety of... activities worthy of constitutional protection under the First Amendment,” there was “no basis in the record for concluding that admission of women as full voting members will impede the organization’s ability to engage in these protected activities or to disseminate its preferred views.” Id., at 626-627. “The Act,” we held, “requires no change in the Jaycees’ creed of promoting the interest of young men, and it imposes no restrictions on the organization’s ability to exclude individuals with ideologies or philosophies different from those of its existing members.” Id., at 627.

We took a similar approach in Board of Directors of Rotary Int’l v. Rotary Club of Duarte, 481 U. S. 537 (1987). Rotary International, a nonprofit corporation, was founded as “‘an organization of business and professional men united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build good*681will and peace in the world.’” Id., at 539. It admitted a cross section of worthy business and community leaders, id., at 540, but refused membership to women. “[T]he exclusion of women,” explained the group’s General Secretary, “results in an ‘aspect of fellowship ... that is enjoyed by the present male membership.’ ” Id., at 541. That policy also allowed the organization “to operate effectively in foreign countries with varied cultures and social mores.” Ibid. Though California’s Civil Rights Act, which applied to Rotary International, prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex, id., at 541-542, n. 2, the organization claimed a right to associate, including the right to select its members.

As in Jaycees, we rejected the claim, holding that “the evidence fails to demonstrate that admitting women to Rotary Clubs will affect in any significant way the existing members’ ability to carry out their various purposes.” 481 U. S., at 548. “To be sure,” we continued, “Rotary Clubs engage in a variety of commendable service activities that are protected by the First Amendment. But [California’s Civil Rights Act] does not require the clubs to abandon or alter any of these activities. It does not require them to abandon their basic goals of humanitarian service, high ethical standards in all vocations, good will, and peace. Nor does it require them to abandon their classification system or admit members who do not reflect a cross section of the community.” Ibid. Finally, even if California’s law worked a “slight infringement on Rotary members’ right of expressive association, that infringement is justified because it serves the State’s compelling interest in eliminating discrimination against women.” Id., at 549.13

*682Several principles are made perfectly clear by Jaycees and Rotary Club. First, to prevail on a claim of expressive association in the face of a State’s antidiscrimination law, it is not enough simply to engage in some kind of expressive activity. Both the Jaycees and the Rotary Club engaged in expressive activity protected by the First Amendment,14 yet that fact was not dispositive. Second, it is not enough to adopt an openly avowed exclusionary membership policy. Both the Jaycees and the Rotary Club did that as well.15 Third, it is not sufficient merely to articulate some connection between the group’s expressive activities and its exclusionary policy. The Rotary Club, for example, justified its male-only membership policy by pointing to the “ ‘aspect of fellowship . . . that is enjoyed by the [exclusively] male membership’ ” and by claiming that only with an exclusively male membership *683could it “operate effectively” in foreign countries. Rotary Club, 481 U. S., at 541.

Rather, in Jaycees, we asked whether Minnesota’s Human Rights Law requiring the admission of women “impose[d] any serious burdens” on the group’s “collective effort on behalf of [its] shared goals” 468 U. S., at 622, 626-627 (emphases added). Notwithstanding the group’s obvious publicly stated exclusionary policy, we did not view the inclusion of women as a “serious burden” on the Jaycees’ ability to engage in the protected speech of its choice. Similarly, in Rotary Club, we asked whether California’s law would “affect in any significant way the existing members’ ability” to engage in their protected speech, or whether the law would require the clubs “to abandon their basic goals.” 481 U. S., at 548 (emphases added); see also Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U. S. 557, 581 (1995) (“[A] private club could exclude an applicant whose manifest views were at odds with a position taken by the club’s existing members”); New York State Club Assn., 487 U. S., at 13 (to prevail on a right to associate claim, the group must “be able to show that it is organized for specific expressive purposes and that it will not be able to advocate its desired viewpoints nearly as effectively if it cannot confine its membership to those who share the same sex, for example, or the same religion”); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449, 462-463 (1958) (asking whether law “entail[ed] the likelihood of a substantial restraint upon the exercise by petitioner’s members of their right to freedom of association” and whether law is “likely to affect adversely the ability of petitioner and its members to pursue their collective effort to foster beliefs”). The relevant question is whether the mere inclusion of the person at issue would “impose any serious burden,” “affect in any significant way,” or be “a substantial restraint upon” the organization’s “shared goals,” “basic goals,” or “collective effort to foster beliefs.” Accordingly, it is necessary to examine what, exactly, are *684BSA’s shared goals and the degree to which its expressive activities would he burdened, affected, or restrained by including homosexuals.

The evidence before this Court makes it exceptionally clear that BSA has, at most, simply adopted an exclusionary membership policy and has no shared goal of disapproving of homosexuality. BSA’s mission statement and federal charter say nothing on the matter; its official membership policy is silent; its Scout Oath and Law — and accompanying definitions — are devoid of any view on the topic; its guidance for Scouts and Scoutmasters on sexuality declare that such matters are “not construed to be Scouting’s proper area,” but are the province of a Scout’s parents and pastor; and BSA’s posture respecting religion tolerates a wide variety of views on the issue of homosexuality. Moreover, there is simply no evidence that BSA otherwise teaches anything in this area, or that it instructs Scouts on matters involving homosexuality in ways not conveyed in the Boy Scout or Scoutmaster Handbooks. In short, Boy Scouts of America is simply silent on homosexuality. There is no shared goal or collective effort to foster a belief about homosexuality at all — let alone one that is significantly burdened by admitting homosexuals.

As in Jaycees, there is “no basis in the record for concluding that admission of [homosexuals] will impede the [Boy Scouts’] ability to engage in [its] protected activities or to disseminate its preferred views” and New Jersey’s law “requires no change in [BSA’s] creed.” 468 U. S., at 626-627. And like Rotary Club, New Jersey’s law “does not require [BSA] to abandon or alter any of” its activities. 481 U. S., at 548. The evidence relied on by the Court is not to the contrary. The undisclosed 1978 policy certainly adds nothing to the actual views disseminated to the Scouts. It simply says that homosexuality is not “appropriate.” There is no reason to give that policy statement more weight than Rotary International’s assertion that all-male membership *685fosters the group’s “fellowship” and was the only way it could “operate effectively.” As for BSA’s postrevocation statements, at most they simply adopt a policy of discrimination, which is no more dispositive than the openly discriminatory policies held insufficient in Jaycees and Rotary Club; there is no evidence here that BSA’s policy was necessary to— or even a part of — BSA’s expressive activities or was ever taught to Scouts.

Equally important is BSA’s failure to adopt any clear position on homosexuality. BSA’s temporary, though ultimately abandoned, view that homosexuality is incompatible with being “morally straight” and “clean” is a far cry from the clear, unequivocal statement necessary to prevail on its claim. Despite the solitary sentences in the 1991 and 1992 policies, the group continued to disclaim any single religious or moral position as a general matter and actively eschewed teaching any lesson on sexuality. It also continued to define “morally straight” and “clean” in the Boy Scout and Scoutmaster Handbooks without any reference to homosexuality. As noted earlier, nothing in our cases suggests that a group can prevail on a right to expressive association if it, effectively, speaks out of both sides of its mouth. A State’s anti-discrimination law does not impose a “serious burden” or a “substantial restraint” upon the group’s “shared goals” if the group itself is unable to identify its own stance with any clarity.

IV

The majority pretermits this entire analysis. It finds that BSA in fact “ ‘teach[es] that homosexual conduct is not morally straight.’ ” Ante, at 651. This conclusion, remarkably, rests entirely on statements in BSA’s briefs. See ibid, (citing Brief for Petitioners 39; Reply Brief for Petitioners 5). Moreover, the majority insists that we must “give deference to an association’s assertions regarding the nature of its expression” and “we must also give deference to an association’s view of what would impair its expression.” Ante, at *686653. So long as the record “contains written evidence” to support a group’s bare assertion, “[w]e need not inquire farther.” Ante, at 651. Once the organization “asserts” that it engages in particular expression, ibid., “[w]e cannot doubt” the truth of that assertion, ante, at 653.

This is an astounding view of the law. I am unaware of any previous instance in which our analysis of the scope of a constitutional right was determined by looking at what a litigant asserts in his or her brief and inquiring no further. It is even more astonishing in the First Amendment area, because, as the majority itself acknowledges, “we are obligated to independently review the factual record.” Ante, at 648-649. It is an odd form of independent review that consists of deferring entirely to whatever a litigant claims. But the majority insists that our inquiry must be “limited,” ante, at 650, because “it is not the role of the courts to reject a group’s expressed values because they disagree with those values or find them internally inconsistent,” ante, at 651. See also Brief for Petitioners 25 (“[T]he Constitution protects [BSA’s] ability to control its own message”).

But nothing in our cases calls for this Court to do any such thing. An organization can adopt the message of its choice, and it is not this Court’s place to disagree with it. But we must inquire whether the group is, in fact, expressing a message (whatever it may be) and whether that message (if one is expressed) is significantly affected by a State’s antidis-crimination law. More critically, that inquiry requires our independent analysis, rather than deference to a group’s litigating posture. Reflection on the subject dictates that such an inquiry is required.

Surely there are instances in which an organization that truly aims to foster a belief at odds with the purposes of a State’s antidiscrimination laws will have a First Amendment right to association that precludes forced compliance with those laws. But that right is not a freedom to discriminate at will, nor is it a right to maintain an exclusionary member*687ship policy simply out of fear of what the public reaction would be if the group’s membership were opened up. It is an implicit right designed to protect the enumerated rights of the First Amendment, not a license to act on any discriminatory impulse. To prevail in asserting a right of expressive association as a defense to a charge of violating an anti-discrimination law, the organization must at least show it has adopted and advocated an unequivocal position inconsistent with a position advocated or epitomized by the person whom the organization seeks to exclude. If this Court were to defer to whatever position an organization is prepared to assert in its briefs, there would be no way to mark the proper boundary between genuine exercises of the right to associate, on the one hand, and sham claims that are simply attempts to insulate nonexpressive private discrimination, on the other hand. Shielding a litigant’s elaim from judicial scrutiny would, in turn, render civil rights legislation a nullity, and turn this important constitutional right into a farce. Accordingly, the Court’s prescription of total deference will not do. In this respect, Justice Frankfurter’s words seem particularly apt:

“Elaborately to argue against this contention is to dignify a elaim devoid of constitutional substance. Of course a State may leave abstention from such discrimi-nations to the conscience of individuals. On the other hand, a State may choose to put its authority behind one of the cherished aims of American feeling by forbidding indulgence in racial or religious prejudice to another’s hurt. To use the Fourteenth Amendment as a sword against such State power would stultify that Amendment. Certainly the insistence by individuals on their private prejudices as to race, color or creed, in relations like those now before us, ought not to have a higher constitutional sanction than the determination of a State to extend the area of nondiscrimination beyond that which the Constitution itself exacts.” Railway *688Mail Assn. v. Corsi, 826 U. S. 88, 98 (1945) (concurring opinion).

There is, of course, a valid concern that a court’s independent review may run the risk of paying too little heed to an organization’s sincerely held views. But unless one is prepared to turn the right to associate into a free pass out of antidiscrimination laws, an independent inquiry is a necessity. Though the group must show that its expressive activities will be substantially burdened by the State’s law, if that law truly has a significant effect on a group’s speech, even the subtle speaker will be able to identify that impact.

In this ease, no such concern is warranted. It is .entirely clear that BSA in fact expresses no clear, unequivocal message burdened by New Jersey’s law.

V

Even if BSA’s right to associate argument fails, it nonetheless might have a First Amendment right to refrain from including debate and dialogue about homosexuality as part of its mission to instill values in Scouts. It can, for example, advise Scouts who are entering adulthood and have questions about sex to talk “with your parents, religious leaders, teachers, or Scoutmaster,” and, in turn, it can direct Scoutmasters who are asked such questions “not undertake to instruct Scouts, in any formalized manner, in the subject of sex and family life” because “it is not construed to be Seout-ing’s proper area.” See supra, at 669-670. Dale’s right to advocate certain beliefs in a public forum or in a private debate does not include a right to advocate these ideas when he is working as a Scoutmaster. And BSA cannot be compelled to include a message about homosexuality among the values it actually chooses to teach its Scouts, if it would prefer to remain silent on that subject.

In. West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624 (1943), we recognized that the government may not “require] affirmation of a belief and an attitude of mind,” nor *689“force an American citizen publicly to profess any statement of belief,” even if doing so does not require the person to “forego any contrary convictions of their own.” Id., at 633-634. “[0]ne important manifestation of the principle of free speech is that one who chooses to speak may also decide ‘what not to say.’ ” Hurley, 515 U. S., at 573. Though the majority mistakenly treats this statement as going to the right to associate, it actually refers to a free speech claim. See id., at 564-565, 580-581 (noting distinction between free speech and right to associate claims). As with the right to associate claim, though, the court is obligated to engage in an independent inquiry into whether the mere inclusion of homosexuals would actually force BSA to proclaim a message it does not want to send. Id., at 567.

In its briefs, BSA implies, even if it does not directly argue, that Dale would use his Scoutmaster position as a “bully pulpit” to convey immoral messages to his troop, and therefore his inclusion in the group would compel BSA to include a message it does not want to impart. Brief for Petitioners 21-22. Even though the majority does not endorse that argument, I think it is important to explain why it lacks merit, before considering the argument the majority does accept.

BSA has not contended, nor does the record support, that Dale had ever advocated a view on homosexuality to his troop before his membership was revoked. Accordingly, BSA’s revocation could only have been based on an assumption that he would do so in the future. But the only information BSA had at the time it revoked Dale’s membership was a newspaper article describing a seminar at Rutgers University on the topic of homosexual teenagers that Dale attended. The relevant passage reads:

“James Dale, 19, co-president of the Rutgers University Lesbian Gay Alliance with Shariee Richardson, also 19, said he lived a double life while in high school, pretending to be straight while attending a military academy.

*690“He remembers dating girls and even laughing at homophobic jokes while at school, only admitting his homosexuality during his second year at Rutgers.

“‘I was looking for a role model, someone who was gay and accepting of me/ Dale said, adding he wasn’t just seeking sexual experiences, but a community that would take him in and provide him with a support network and friends.” App. 517.

Nothing in that article, however, even remotely suggests that Dale would advocate any views on homosexuality to his troop. The Scoutmaster Handbook instructs Dale, like all Scoutmasters, that sexual issues are not their “proper area,” and there is no evidence that Dale had any intention of violating this rule. Indeed, from all accounts Dale was a model Boy Scout and Assistant Scoutmaster up until the day his membership was revoked, and there is no reason to believe that he would suddenly disobey the directives of BSA because of anything he said in the newspaper article.

To be sure, the article did say that Dale was co-president of the Lesbian/Gay Alliance at Rutgers University, and that group presumably engages in advocacy regarding homosexual issues. But surely many members of BSA engage in expressive activities outside of their troop, and surely BSA does not want all of that expression to be carried on inside the troop. For example, a Scoutmaster may be a member of a religious group that encourages its followers to convert others to its faith. Or a Scoutmaster may belong to a political party that encourages its members to advance its views among family and friends.16 Yet BSA does not think it is appropriate for Scoutmasters to proselytize a particular faith to unwilling Scouts or to attempt to convert them from one *691religion to another.17 Nor does BSA think it appropriate for Scouts or Scoutmasters to bring politics into the troop.18 From all accounts, then, BSA does not discourage or forbid outside expressive activity, but relies on compliance with its policies and trusts Scouts and Scoutmasters alike not to bring unwanted views into the organization. Of course, a disobedient member who flouts BSA’s policy may be expelled. But there is no basis for BSA to presume that a homosexual will be unable to comply with BSA’s policy not to discuss sexual matters any more than it would presume that politically or religiously active members could not resist the urge to proselytize or politicize during troop meetings.19 As BSA itself puts it, its rights are “not implicated unless a prospective leader presents himself as a role model ineon-*692sistent with Boy Seouting’s understanding of the Scout Oath and Law.” Brief for Petitioners 6 (emphases added).20

The majority, though, does not rest its conclusion on the claim that Dale will use his position as a bully pulpit. Rather, it contends that Dale’s mere presence among the Boy Scouts will itself force the group to convey a message about homosexuality — even if Dale has no intention of doing so. The majority holds that “[t]he presence of an avowed homosexual and gay rights activist in an assistant scoutmaster’s uniform sends a distine[t] . . . message,” and, accordingly, BSA is entitled to exclude that message. Ante, at 655-656. In particular, “Dale’s presence in the Boy Scouts would, at the very least, force the organization to send a message, both to the youth members and the world, that the Boy Scouts accepts homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of be*693havior.” Ante, at 653; see also Brief for Petitioners 24 (“By donning the uniform of an adult leader in Scouting, he would 'celebrate [his] identity’ as an openly gay Scout leader”).

The majority’s argument relies exclusively on Hurley v. Irish-Americcm Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U. S. 557 (1995). In that case, petitioners John Hurley and the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council ran a privately operated St. Patrick’s Day parade. Respondent, an organization known as “GLIB,” represented a contingent of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals who sought to march in the petitioners’ parade “as a way to express pride in their Irish heritage as openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals.” Id., at 561. When the parade organizers refused GLIB’s admission, GLIB brought suit under Massachusetts’ antidiscrimination law. That statute, like New Jersey’s law, prohibited discrimination on account of sexual orientation in any place of public accommodation, which the state courts interpreted to include the parade. Petitioners argued that forcing them to include GLIB in their parade would violate their free speech rights.

We agreed. We first pointed out that the St. Patrick’s Day - parade — like most every parade — is an inherently expressive undertaking. Id., at 568-570. Next, we reaffirmed that the government may not compel anyone to proclaim a belief with which he or she disagrees. Id., at 573-574. We then found that GLIB’s marching in the parade would be an expressive act suggesting the view “that people of their sexual orientations have as much claim to unqualified social acceptance as heterosexuals.” Id., at 574. Finally, we held that GLIB’s participation in the parade “would likely be pei’-eeived” as the parade organizers’ own speech — or at least as a view which they approved — because of a parade organizer’s customary control over who marches in the parade. Id., at 575. Though Hurley has a superficial similarity to the present ease, a close inspection reveals a wide gulf between that case and the one before us today.

*694First, it was critical to our analysis that GLIB was actually conveying a message by participating in the parade — otherwise, the parade organizers could hardly claim that they were being forced to include any unwanted message at all. Our conclusion that GLIB was conveying a message was inextricably tied to the fact that GLIB wanted to march in a parade, as well as the manner in which it intended to march. We noted the “inherent expressiveness of marching [in a parade] to make a point,” id., at 568, and in particular that GLIB was formed for the purpose of making a particular point about gay pride, id., at 561, 570. More specifically, GLIB “distributed a fact sheet describing the members’ intentions” and, in a previous parade, had “marched behind a shamrock-strewn banner with the simple inscription ‘Irish American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston.’” Id., at 570. “[A] contingent marching behind the organization’s banner,” we said, would clearly convey a message. Id., at 574. Indeed, we expressly distinguished between the members of GLIB, who marched as a unit to express their views about their own sexual orientation, on the one hand, and homosexuals who might participate as individuals in the parade without intending to express anything about their sexuality by doing so. Id., at 572-573.

Second, we found it relevant that GLIB’s message “would likely be perceived” as the parade organizers’ own speech. Id., at 575. That was so because “[p]arades and demonstrations ... are not understood to be so neutrally presented or selectively viewed” as, say, a broadcast by a cable operator, who is usually considered to be “merely ‘a conduit’ for the speech” produced by others. Id., at 575-576. Rather, parade organizers are usually understood to make the “customary determination about a unit admitted to the parade.” Id., at 575. ■

Dale’s inclusion in the Boy Scouts is nothing like the case in Hurley. His participation sends no cognizable message to the Scouts or to the world. Unlike GLIB, Dale did not *695carry a banner or a sign; he did not distribute any factsheet; and he expressed no intent to send any message. If there is any kind of message being sent, then, it is by the mere act of joining the Boy Scouts. Such an act does not constitute an instance of symbolic speech under the First Amendment.21

It is true, of course, that some acts are so imbued with symbolic meaning that they qualify as “speech” under the First Amendment. See United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 376 (1968). At the same time, however, “[w]e cannot accept the view that an apparently limitless variety of conduct can be labeled ‘speech’ whenever the person engaging in the conduct intends thereby to express an idea.” Ibid. Though participating in the Scouts could itself conceivably send a message on some level, it is not the kind of act that we have recognized as speech. See Dallas v. Stanglin, 490 U. S. 19, 24-25 (1989).22 Indeed, if merely joining a group did constitute symbolic speech; and such speech were attributable to the group being joined; and that group has the right to exclude that speech (and hence, the right to exclude that person from joining), then the right of free speech effectively becomes a limitless right to exclude for every organization, whether or not it engages in any expressive activities. That cannot be, and never has been, the law.

*696The only apparent explanation for the majority’s holding, then, is that homosexuals are simply so different from the rest of society that their presence alone — unlike any other individual’s — should be singled out for special First Amendment treatment. Under the majority’s reasoning, an openly gay male is irreversibly affixed with the label “homosexual.” That label, even though unseen, communicates a message that permits his exclusion wherever he goes. His openness is the sole and sufficient justification for his ostracism. Though unintended, reliance on such a justification is tantamount to a constitutionally prescribed symbol of inferiority.23 As counsel for BSA remarked, Dale “put a banner‘around his neck when he ... got himself into the newspaper.... He created a reputation.... He can’t take that banner off. He put it on himself and, indeed, he has continued to put it on himself.” See Tr. of Oral Arg. 25.

Another difference between this ease and Hurley lies in the fact that Hurley involved the parade organizers’ claim to determine the content of the message they wish to give at a particular time and place. The standards governing such a claim are simply different from the standards that govern BSA’s claim of a right of expressive association. Generally, a private person or a private organization has a right to refuse to broadcast a message with which it disagrees, and a right to refuse to contradict or garble its own specific statement at any given place or time by including the messages of others. An expressive association claim, however, normally involves the avowal and advocacy of a consistent position on some issue over time. This is why a different kind of scrutiny must be given to an expressive association claim, lest the right of expressive association simply turn into a right to discriminate whenever some group can think of an expressive object that would seem to be inconsistent with the ad*697mission of some person as a member or at odds with the appointment of a person to a leadership position in the group.

Furthermore, it is not likely that BSA would be understood to send any message, either to Scouts or to the world, simply by admitting someone as a member. Over the years, BSA has generously welcomed over 87 million young Americans into its ranks. In 1992 over one million adults were active BSA members. 160 N. J. 562, 571, 734 A. 2d 1196, 1200 (1999). The notion that an organization of that size and enormous prestige implicitly endorses the views that each of those adults may express in a non-Seouting context is simply mind boggling. Indeed, in this case there is no evidence that the young Scouts in Dale’s troop, or members of their families, were even aware of his sexual orientation, either before or after his public statements at Rutgers University.24 It is equally farfetched to assert that Dale’s open declaration of his homosexuality, reported in a local newspaper, will effectively force BSA to send a message to anyone simply because it allows Dale to be an Assistant Scoutmaster. For an Olympic gold medal winner or a Wimbledon tennis champion, being “openly gay” perhaps communicates a message — for example, that openness about one’s sexual orientation is more virtuous than concealment; that a homosexual person can be a capable and virtuous person who should be judged like anyone else; and that homosexuality is not immoral— but it certainly does not follow that they necessarily send a message on behalf of the organizations that sponsor the activities in which they excel. The fact that such persons participate in these organizations is not usually construed to convey a message on behalf of those organizations any more than does the inclusion of women, African-Americans, reli*698gious minorities, or any other discrete group.25 Surely the organizations are not forced by antidiscrimination laws to take any position on the legitimacy of any individual’s private beliefs or private conduct.

The State of New Jersey has decided that people who are open and frank about their sexual orientation are entitled to equal access to employment as schoolteachers, police officers, librarians, athletic coaches, and a host of other jobs filled by citizens who serve as role models for children and adults alike. Dozens of Scout units throughout the State are sponsored by public agencies, such as schools and fire departments, that employ such role models. BSA’s affiliation with numerous public agencies that comply with New Jersey’s law against discrimination cannot be understood to convey any particular message endorsing or condoning the activities of all these people.26

*699VI

Unfavorable opinions about homosexuals “have ancient roots.” Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U. S. 186, 192 (1986). Like equally atavistic opinions about certain racial groups, those roots have been nourished by sectarian doctrine. Id., at 196-197 (Burger, C. J., concurring); Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1,3 (1967).27 See also Mathews v. Lucas, 421U. S. 495,520 (1976) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (“Habit, rather than analysis, makes it seem acceptable and natural to distinguish between male and female, alien and citizen, legitimate and illegitimate; for too much of our history there was the same inertia in distinguishing between black, and white”). Over the years, however, interaction with real people, rather than mere adherence to traditional ways of thinking about members of unfamiliar classes, have modified those opinions. A few examples: The American Psychiatric Association’s and the American Psychological Association’s removal of “homosexuality” from their lists of mental disorders;28 a move toward greater understanding within some religious communities;29 Justice Blaekmun’s classic opinion in Bowers;30 *700Georgia’s invalidation of the statute upheld in Bowers;31 and New Jersey’s enactment of the provision at issue in this ease. Indeed, the past month alone has witnessed some remarkable changes in attitudes about homosexuals.32

That such prejudices are still prevalent and that they have caused serious and tangible harm to countless members of the class New Jersey seeks to protect are established matters of fact that neither the Boy Scouts nor the Court disputes. That harm can only be aggravated by the creation of a constitutional shield for a policy that is itself the product of a habitual way of thinking about strangers. As Justice Brandéis so wisely advised, “we must be ever on our guard, lest we erect our prejudices into legal principles.”

If we would guide by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold. I respectfully dissent.

Justice Souter,

with whom Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer join, dissenting.

I join Justice Stevens’s dissent but add this further word on the significance of Part VI of his opinion. There, Justice Stevens describes the changing attitudes toward gay people and notes a parallel with the decline of stereotypical thinking about race and gender. The legitimacy of New *701Jersey’s interest in forbidding discrimination on all these bases by those furnishing public accommodations is, as Justice Stevens indicates, acknowledged by many to be beyond question. The fact that we are cognizant of this laudable decline in stereotypical thinking on homosexuality should not, however, be taken to control the resolution of this case.

Boy Scouts of America (BSA) is entitled, consistently with its own tenets and the open doors of American courts, to raise a federal constitutional basis for resisting the application of New Jersey’s law. BSA has done that and has chosen to defend against enforcement of the state public accommodations law on the ground that the First Amendment protects expressive association: individuals have a right to join together to advocate opinions free from government interference. See Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609, 622 (1984). BSA has disclaimed any argument that Dale’s past or future actions, as distinct from his unapologetie declaration of sexual orientation, would justify his exclusion from BSA. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 12-13.

The right of expressive association does not, of course, turn on the popularity of the views advanced by a group that claims protection. Whether the group appears to this Court to be in the vanguard or rearguard of social thinking is irrelevant to the group’s rights. I conclude that BSA has not made out an expressive association claim, therefore, not because of what BSA may espouse, but because of its failure to make sexual orientation the subject of any unequivocal advocacy, using the channels it customarily employs to state its message. As Justice Stevens explains, no group can claim a right of expressive association without identifying a clear position to be advocated over time in an unequivocal way. To require less, and to allow exemption from a public accommodations statute based on any individual’s difference from an alleged group ideal, however expressed and however inconsistently claimed, would convert the right of expres*702sive association into an easy trump of any antidiscrimination law.*

If, on the other hand, an expressive association claim has met the conditions Justice Stevens describes as necessary, there may well be circumstances in which the antidiscrimination law must yield, as he says. It is certainly possible for an individual to become so identified with a position as to epitomize it publicly. When that position is at odds with a group’s advocated position, applying an antidiscrimination statute to require the group’s acceptance of the individual in a position of group leadership could so modify or muddle or frustrate the group’s advocacy as to violate the expressive assoeiational right. While it is not our business here to rule on any such hypothetical, it is at least clear that our estimate of the progressive character of the group’s position will be irrelevant to the First Amendment analysis if such a case comes to us for decision.