Cite as: 530 U. S. 640 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
tory 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(l) (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 case, 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 Jaycees has failed to demonstrate . . .
3 Four State Supreme Courts and one United States Court of Appeals have ruled that the Boy Scouts is not a place of public accommodation. Welsh v. Boy Scouts of America, 993 F. 2d 1267 (CA7), cert. denied, 510 U. S. 1012 (1993); Curran v. Mount Diablo Council of the Boy Scouts of America, 17 Cal. 4th 670, 952 P. 2d 218 (1998); Seabourn v. Coronado Area Council, Boy Scouts of America, 257 Kan. 178, 891 P. 2d 385 (1995); Quinnipiac Council, Boy Scouts of America, Inc. v. Comm'n on Human Rights & Opportunities, 204 Conn. 287, 528 A. 2d 352 (1987); Schwenk v. Boy Scouts of America, 275 Ore. 327, 551 P. 2d 465 (1976). No federal appellate court or state supreme court—except the New Jersey Supreme Court in this case—has reached a contrary result.
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