698
Stevens, J., dissenting
gious 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
25 The majority simply announces, without analysis, that Dale's participation alone would "force the organization to send a message." Ante, at 653. "But . . . these are merely conclusory words, barren of analysis. . . . For First Amendment principles to be implicated, the State must place the citizen in the position of either apparently or actually 'asserting as true' the message." Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705, 721 (1977) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).
26 BSA also argues that New Jersey's law violates its right to "intimate association." Brief for Petitioners 39-47. Our cases recognize a substantive due process right "to enter into and carry on certain intimate or private relationships." Rotary Club, 481 U. S., at 545. As with the First Amendment right to associate, the State may not interfere with the selection of individuals in such relationships. Jaycees, 468 U. S., at 618. Though the precise scope of the right to intimate association is unclear, "we consider factors such as size, purpose, selectivity, and whether others are excluded from critical aspects of the relationship" to determine whether a group is sufficiently personal to warrant this type of constitutional protection. Rotary Club, 481 U. S., at 546. Considering BSA's size, see supra, at 697, its broad purposes, and its nonselectivity, see supra, at 666, it is impossible to conclude that being a member of the Boy Scouts ranks among those intimate relationships falling within this right, such as marriage, bearing children, rearing children, and cohabitation with relatives. Rotary Club, 481 U. S., at 545.
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