Domestic organizations that received funding under United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act brought action against United States, seeking declaration that Act’s provision requiring organizations that receive funding under Act to have policy expressly opposing prostitution violated their First Amendment rights.
The Supreme Court held that requirement that organizations receiving funding under the Act have a policy expressly opposing prostitution, by compelling as a condition of federal funding the affirmation of a belief that by its nature could not be confined within the scope of the Government program, violated First Amendment free speech protections.
“If there is a fixed star in the constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”