First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Davenport · ¶24
The First Amendment guarantees all Americans the rights to speak, worship, publish, assemble, and petition their government freely. Each of these rights, this Court has “ `long understood,' ” necessarily carries with it “ `a corresponding right to associate with others.' ” Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, 594 U. S. 595, 606 (2021) (AFP) (quoting Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609, 622 (1984)). Without such a right, no two men could safely share the same soapbox, no two women the same church. The government could reduce any assembly to a party of one, and the right to petition would amount to nothing more than the power to sign one's own name alone. Appreciating all this, we have held that government actions tending to “curtai[l] the freedom to associate” warrant “the closest scrutiny” under the First Amendment. NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449,…Read in context ›
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