Chiles v. Salazar · ¶50

This argument echoes Colorado's claim that it seeks to regulate only conduct, and they falter for similar reasons. If a government could reclassify talk therapy as speech incident to conduct, it might just as easily do the same for speech incident to “teaching or protesting.” Otto, 981 F. 3d, at 865. “[B]oth are activities, after all.” Ibid. Were that the rule, “[w]hat an opportunity for [the] suppression of dissent this would offer.” 116 F. 4th, at 1228 (Hartz, J., dissenting). Governments could easily wield all manner of laws regulating some conduct to silence speech they disfavor. It is a result that would not “compor[t] with the First Amendment's animating principles” so much as betray them. Contra, post, at 674 (Jackson, J., dissenting).

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