The First-Amendment does not narrowly protect public expression of ideas and sentiments (whether spoken, written, or gestural); it also prohibits government-compelled speech. “[T]he right of freedom of thought protected by the First Amendment against state action includes both the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all.” Wooley v. Maynard, 430 US 705, 714 (1977).
The government cannot lawfully prohibit expression and cannot lawfully compel expression. By way of example, the First Amendment protects a person’s right to voluntarily sing in public and also the right to refuse to sing in public. It follows too that a person may refuse a government order to be remain silent. Silence is not narrowly a refusal of compelled speech; silence is also an affirmative expression of thought expressing disagreement and defiance, just as words express argument,