Title: State v. Thompson

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Cite as State  v. Thompson, 95 Ohio St.3d 264, 2002-Ohio-2124.] 
 
 
THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLEE, v. THOMPSON, APPELLANT. 
[Cite as State v. Thompson, 95 Ohio St.3d 264, 2002-Ohio-2124.] 
Criminal law — Importuning — R.C. 2907.07(B) is facially invalid under the 
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 2, 
Article I of the Ohio Constitution. 
(No. 2001-0333 — Submitted February 5, 2002 — Decided May 15, 2002.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Ashtabula County, No. 99-A-0070. 
__________________ 
SYLLABUS OF THE COURT 
R.C. 2907.07(B) is facially invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment to the 
United States Constitution and Section 2, Article I of the Ohio 
Constitution. 
__________________ 
 
COOK, J. 
{¶1} 
This cause presents the issue of whether Ohio’s importuning 
statute, R.C. 2907.07(B), violates the Equal Protection Clauses of the United 
States and Ohio Constitutions.  Because we hold that the statutory subsection 
violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 
2, Article I of the Ohio Constitution, we reverse defendant-appellant Eric 
Thompson’s conviction for importuning. 
I 
{¶2} 
In July 1999, Thompson was charged with violating R.C. 
2907.07(B) after he had solicited a male jogger by offering to perform a sexual 
act.  Prior to trial, Thompson moved to dismiss the charge against him.  
Thompson argued that because the importuning statute discriminated against 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
 
2
those of homosexual orientation, the statute violated the Equal Protection Clauses 
of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 2, 
Article I of the Ohio Constitution.  The trial court denied the motion to dismiss, 
and the case proceeded to a bench trial. 
{¶3} 
The trial court found Thompson guilty.  Thompson appealed to the 
Eleventh District Court of Appeals.  That court found Thompson’s argument that 
the importuning statute violated equal protection compelling, but “[w]ith 
considerable reluctance” followed a prior decision from this court that held that 
R.C. 2907.07(B) did not violate equal protection.  Thompson then appealed to this 
court. 
{¶4} 
The cause is now before this court pursuant to our allowance of a 
discretionary appeal. 
II 
{¶5} 
R.C. 2907.07(B) provides that “[n]o person shall solicit a person of 
the same sex to engage in sexual activity with the offender, when the offender 
knows such solicitation is offensive to the other person, or is reckless in that 
regard.”  The 1973 Legislative Service Commission comment to 1972 
Am.Sub.H.B. No. 511, which enacted the current version of R.C. 2907.07(B), 
describes the operation and stated rationale behind the statute: 
{¶6} 
“The solicitation of homosexual or lesbian activity is also 
prohibited, when the solicitor knows or has reasonable cause to believe the 
solicitation is offensive to the person solicited. 
{¶7} 
“The section represents an exception to the general rule that ‘just 
asking’ is not a criminal offense.  * * * The rationale for prohibiting indiscreet 
solicitation of deviate conduct is that the solicitation in itself can be highly 
repugnant to the person solicited, and there is a risk that it may provoke a violent 
response.” 
January Term, 2002 
3 
{¶8} 
In State v. Phipps (1979), 58 Ohio St.2d 271, 12 O.O.3d 273, 389 
N.E.2d 1128, the court relied on this stated purpose in construing R.C. 2907.07(B) 
“to proscribe only the ‘fighting’ words category of unprotected speech.  ‘Fighting’ 
words are those ‘which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an 
immediate breach of the peace.’ ”  Id. at 278, 12 O.O.3d 273, 389 N.E.2d 1128, 
quoting Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), 315 U.S. 568, 572, 62 S.Ct. 766, 
86 L.Ed. 1031.  Thus, the Phipps court reached the following holding: 
{¶9} 
“Under R.C. 2907.07(B), persons may not be punished for 
‘solicit[ing] a person of the same sex to engage in sexual activity with the 
offender, when the offender knows such solicitation is offensive to the other 
person, or is reckless in that regard,’ unless the solicitation, by its very utterance, 
inflicts injury or is likely to provoke the average person to an immediate 
retaliatory breach of the peace.”  Id. at paragraph one of the syllabus. 
{¶10} Thompson asks this court to hold that R.C. 2907.07(B) violates the 
Equal Protection Clauses of the United States and Ohio Constitutions.  The state 
in turn notes its agreement with the court of appeals, which found our prior 
decisions regarding R.C. 2907.07(B) problematic and asks that we “more fully 
explain why R.C. 2907.07(B) does not violate the Equal Protection clauses under 
the United States and Ohio Constitutions.” 
{¶11} The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution 
provides that “[n]o State shall * * * deny to any person within its jurisdiction the 
equal protection of the laws.”  Ohio’s Equal Protection Clause in turn provides 
that “[a]ll political power is inherent in the people.  Government is instituted for 
their equal protection and benefit * * *.”  Section 2, Article I, Ohio Constitution.  
We have construed these provisions as being “functionally equivalent,” 
necessitating the same analysis.  Am. Assn. of Univ. Professors, Cent. State Univ. 
Chapter v. Cent. State Univ. (1999), 87 Ohio St.3d 55, 59, 717 N.E.2d 286. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
 
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{¶12} Without revisiting the Phipps issue of whether homosexual 
solicitations targeted by R.C. 2907.07(B) constitute fighting words, we find that 
the statute is facially invalid as a content-based restriction on speech, which by 
extension violates the equal protection guarantees of both the United States and 
Ohio Constitutions.  In reaching this result, we note that while the parties contend 
that this court should apply rational-basis review to determine the constitutionality 
of R.C. 2907.07(B), we must as a matter of law employ a more exacting level of 
scrutiny. 
{¶13} “In considering whether state legislation violates the Equal 
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment * * * [courts] apply different 
levels of scrutiny to different types of classifications.”  Clark v. Jeter (1988), 486 
U.S. 456, 461, 108 S.Ct. 1910, 100 L.Ed.2d 465.  We use the same analytic 
approach in determining whether a statutory classification violates Section 2, 
Article I of the Ohio Constitution.  State v. Williams (2000), 88 Ohio St.3d 513, 
530, 728 N.E.2d 342.  Thus, all statutes are subject to at least rational-basis 
review, which requires that a statutory classification be rationally related to a 
legitimate government purpose. Clark, 486 U.S. at 461, 108 S.Ct. 1910, 100 
L.Ed.2d 465; Williams, 88 Ohio St.3d at 530, 728 N.E.2d 342.  When a 
discriminatory classification based on sex or illegitimacy is at issue, we employ 
heightened or intermediate scrutiny and require that the classification be 
substantially related to an important governmental objective.  Clark, 486 U.S. at 
461, 108 S.Ct. 1910, 100 L.Ed.2d 465.  And when classifications affect a 
fundamental constitutional right, or when they are based on race or national 
origin, we will conduct a strict-scrutiny inquiry.  Id.; Williams, 88 Ohio St.3d at 
530, 728 N.E.2d 342.  This latter level of scrutiny demands that a discriminatory 
classification be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.  United 
States v. Playboy Ent. Group, Inc. (2000), 529 U.S. 803, 813, 120 S.Ct. 1878, 146 
January Term, 2002 
5 
L.Ed.2d 865; Painesville Bldg. Dept. v. Dworken & Bernstein Co., L.P.A. (2000), 
89 Ohio St.3d 564, 567, 733 N.E.2d 1152. 
{¶14} Although the parties contend that R.C. 2907.07(B)’s classification 
is based on sexual orientation, we find that characterization of R.C. 2907.07(B) 
erroneous.  The plain language of the statute dictates that any person—a 
heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual male or female—who solicits a person of 
the same sex to engage in sexual activity would be guilty of importuning, if the 
offender knowingly offended the solicitee or was reckless in that regard.  Further, 
our decision in Phipps characterized the statutory classification as based on the 
nature of the offensive sexual content of the communication.  Therefore, the 
United States Supreme Court’s decision in R.A.V. v. St. Paul (1992), 505 U.S. 
377, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305, guides our analysis.  Decided over a dozen 
years after our decision in Phipps, R.A.V. concerned a city ordinance that 
prohibited placing “on public or private property a symbol * * * which one knows 
or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others 
on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender.”  Id. at 380, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 
120 L.Ed.2d 305.  R.A.V., the defendant, had allegedly burned a cross on a black 
family’s property, thereby violating the ordinance.  Prior to trial, he moved to 
dismiss the charges in part on the theory that because the ordinance was an 
impermissible content-based limitation on speech, it was facially invalid under the 
First Amendment.  After initially obtaining a dismissal, R.A.V. lost on appeal in 
state court and then brought the issue to the United States Supreme Court.  The 
court was bound by the construction of the ordinance given to it by the state 
supreme court: that “the ordinance reache[d] only those expressions that constitute 
‘fighting words.’ ”  Id. at 381, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305.  Accepting this 
characterization, the court held that even if “all of the expression reached by the 
ordinance is proscribable under the ‘fighting words’ doctrine, we nonetheless 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
 
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conclude that the ordinance is facially unconstitutional in that it prohibits 
otherwise permitted speech solely on the basis of the subjects the speech 
addresses.”  Id. 
{¶15} The rationale behind this decision is instructive.  The court 
explained that the general proposition that fighting words “are ‘not within the area 
of constitutionally protected speech,’ or that the ‘protection of the First 
Amendment does not extend’ to them” is misleading if not taken in the proper 
context.  (Citation omitted.)  Id. at 383, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305, quoting 
Roth v. United States (1957), 354 U.S. 476, 483, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498, 
and Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc. (1984), 466 U.S. 485, 
504, 104 S.Ct. 1949, 80 L.Ed.2d 502.  “[T]he exclusion of ‘fighting words’ from 
the scope of the First Amendment simply means that, for purposes of that 
Amendment, the unprotected features of the words are, despite their verbal 
character, essentially a ‘nonspeech’ element of communication.”  Id. at 386, 112 
S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305.  Even such “nonspeech,” the court noted, 
nonetheless “can be used to convey an idea.”  Id.  Thus, the court held that “[t]he 
government may not regulate use based on hostility—or favoritism—towards the 
underlying message expressed.”  Id.  This is because “the First Amendment 
imposes * * * a ‘content discrimination’ limitation upon a State’s prohibition of 
proscribable speech.”  Id. at 387, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305. 
{¶16} We find this reasoning directly applicable to the case at bar.  Here, 
R.C. 2907.07(B) seeks to handicap the expression of particular content—offensive 
same-sex solicitations—while permitting offensive solicitations between opposite 
sexes.  But as the United States Supreme Court has explained, “the reason why 
fighting words are categorically excluded from the protection of the First 
Amendment is not that their content communicates any particular idea, but that 
their content embodies a particularly intolerable (and socially unnecessary) mode 
January Term, 2002 
7 
of expressing whatever idea the speaker wishes to convey.”  (Emphasis sic.)  Id. at 
393, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305.  As in R.A.V., the state prohibition here 
does not single out “an especially offensive mode of expression—it has not, for 
example, selected for prohibition only those fighting words that communicate 
ideas in a threatening (as opposed to a merely obnoxious) manner.”  Id.  Rather, as 
Phipps held, the distinction drawn in R.C. 2907.07(B) impermissibly proscribes 
only fighting words of a specific sexual character.  This constitutes a content-
based limitation. 
{¶17} The stated legislative purpose of the statutory classification at issue 
is the desire to prevent a violent response to same-sex sexual solicitation.  But the 
means employed here to accomplish this end, in the words of the R.A.V. court, 
present a “realistic possibility that official suppression of ideas is afoot.”  R.A.V., 
505 U.S. at 390, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305.  We are convinced that R.C. 
2907.07(B) makes such a possibility an actuality.  This is not an instance in which 
the selectivity of the government restriction is simply underinclusive.  Mere 
underinclusiveness does not offend freedom of speech—and therefore equal 
protection—because it does not discriminate on the basis of content.  See id. at 
387, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305.  This is also not a case in which “the basis 
for the content discrimination consists entirely of the very reason the entire class 
of speech at issue is proscribable.”  Id. at 388, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305.  
Nor is this a case in which a statute’s content discrimination targets only 
“secondary effects” of the prohibited speech.  Cf. R.A.V., 505 U.S. at 394, 112 
S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305 (“ ‘Listeners’ reactions to speech are not the type of 
“secondary effects” we referred to in [Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc. (1986), 
475 U.S. 41, 106 S.Ct. 925, 89 L.Ed.2d 29].’ ”  “ ‘The emotive impact of speech 
on its audience is not a “secondary effect,” ’ ” quoting Boos v. Barry [1988], 485 
U.S. 312, 321, 108 S.Ct. 1157, 99 L.Ed.2d 333). 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
 
8
{¶18} Here, R.C. 2907.07(B)’s content-based classification implicates a 
fundamental right.  Cf. Williams, 88 Ohio St.3d at 530, 728 N.E.2d 342 
(“Recognized fundamental rights include the right to vote, the right of interstate 
travel, rights guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States 
Constitution, the right to procreate, and other rights of a uniquely personal 
nature”).  Therefore, the court of appeals erred in applying less than strict-scrutiny 
analysis.  See Williams v. Rhodes (1968), 393 U.S. 23, 31, 89 S.Ct. 5, 21 L.Ed.2d 
24, quoting NAACP v. Button (1963), 371 U.S. 415, 438, 83 S.Ct. 328, 9 L.Ed.2d 
405 (“ ‘only a compelling state interest in the regulation of a subject within the 
State’s constitutional power to regulate can justify limiting First Amendment 
freedoms’ ”). 
{¶19} The state has not narrowly tailored R.C. 2907.07(B) to serve a 
compelling state interest.  Curtailing the risk of violent responses to offensive 
sexual solicitations—as opposed to prohibiting offensive sexual solicitations of a 
particular content—could have been achieved by prohibiting all offensive 
solicitations of sexual activity.  The existence of such an adequate content-neutral 
alternative undercuts any notions that the discriminatory classification of R.C. 
2907.07(B) is necessary or that the statute’s “ ‘asserted justification is in fact an 
accurate description of the purpose and effect of the law.’ ” R.A.V., 505 U.S. at 
395, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305, quoting Burson v. Freeman (1992), 504 
U.S. 191, 213, 112 S.Ct. 1846, 119 L.Ed.2d 5 (Kennedy, J., concurring).  See, 
also, Madsen v. Women’s Health Ctr., Inc. (1994), 512 U.S. 753, 763, 114 S.Ct. 
2516, 129 L.Ed.2d 593 (finding that injunction that prohibited picketing was 
content neutral, because “none of the restrictions imposed by the court were 
directed at the contents of petitioner’s message”).  Although the Legislative 
Service Commission comments regarding R.C. 2907.07(B) describe the purpose 
of the statute as preventing violence related to offensive same-sex solicitations, 
January Term, 2002 
9 
“the mere assertion of a content-neutral purpose [is not] enough to save a law 
which, on its face, discriminates based on content.”  Turner Broadcasting Sys., 
Inc. v. Fed. Communications Comm. (1994), 512 U.S. 622, 642-643, 114 S.Ct. 
2445, 129 L.Ed.2d 497. 
{¶20} R.C. 2907.07(B) prohibits speech because of the content expressed 
in that communication.  Such selectivity—targeting specifically the message and 
not merely the mode used to communicate that message—handicaps the 
expression of particular ideas.  See R.A.V., 505 U.S. at 394, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 
L.Ed.2d 305.  The state not only has failed to demonstrate how this discriminatory 
classification is narrowly tailored to satisfy a compelling state interest, but, in fact, 
agrees with the proposition that R.C. 2907.07(B) could not even pass a rational-
basis review, a much less stringent standard than strict scrutiny. 
III 
{¶21} In his separate concurrence, Justice Pfeifer also argues that 
rational-basis review applies and that the statute would fail under such scrutiny.  
He errs in several ways. 
{¶22} The concurrence accuses us of “not address[ing] the central issue 
of the case, the only issue that was argued by the parties: whether R.C. 2907.07(B) 
unconstitutionally distinguishes between people who seek to engage in 
homosexual activity and people who seek to engage in heterosexual activity.”  In 
framing the issue of this case in such a way, the concurrence fails to appreciate 
that the broad issue before this court is whether R.C. 2907.07(B) violates the 
Equal Protection Clauses of the United States and Ohio Constitutions.  In making 
this determination, we are bound neither by a party’s characterization of a 
statutory classification nor by any party’s suggestion of what level of scrutiny we 
must employ.  Rather, a court must independently determine what level of 
scrutiny it must apply based on the operation of the statute involved.  Cf. Atty. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
 
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Gen. of New York v. Soto-Lopez (1986), 476 U.S. 898, 906, 106 S.Ct. 2317, 90 
L.Ed.2d 899, fn. 6 (plurality opinion) (explaining that “[t]he logical first question 
to ask when presented with an equal protection claim * * * is what level of review 
is appropriate” and that “in order to ascertain the appropriate level of scrutiny, [a 
court] must, as an initial matter, determine” what right is implicated). 
{¶23} Nonetheless, the concurrence concludes that this court should 
employ a rational-basis review, because the “obvious intent of R.C. 2907.07(B) is 
to restrict homosexual activity, not speech.”  This reading of the statute ignores 
what the statute actually proscribes.  Nothing in the statutory language 
criminalizes homosexual activity; rather, the statute criminalizes only same-sex 
solicitation.  As noted, under an accurate reading of the statutory language, even a 
heterosexual could be guilty of violating R.C. 2907.07(B), if he or she spoke 
words constituting a same-sex solicitation.  It remains legal to engage in same-sex 
sexual activity, but (according to Phipps) not to solicit such activity in a manner 
that could lead to violence.  While it is conceivable that this prohibition would 
inhibit the permitted conduct, such a result is secondary to the purpose of the 
statute on its face.  In other words, the concurring Justice would strike a statute 
based not on what the statute actually proscribes explicitly, but on what it might 
also inhibit implicitly—ignoring the content-based nature of the statutory 
prohibition.1 
{¶24} Finally, even if R.C. 2907.07(B) did not implicate a fundamental 
right, requiring strict scrutiny, if this court were to employ rational-basis review, it 
would require this court to uphold the statute.  The concurrence thus not only 
applies the wrong level of review, but applies it incorrectly. 
                                          
 
1. 
The concurrence misleads with its reference to R.C. 2907.24 to bolster its construction of 
R.C. 2907.07(B).  R.C. 2907.24 is simply not analogous.  That statute does not present a similar 
prohibition on speech that distinguishes between heterosexual and homosexual solicitations to 
engage in sexual activity for hire. 
January Term, 2002 
11 
{¶25} This court has previously explained: 
{¶26} “Under federal [and state] rational-basis analysis, a classification 
‘must be upheld against equal protection challenge if there is any reasonably 
conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the classification.’ 
Fed. Communications Comm. v. Beach Communications, Inc. (1993), 508 U.S. 
307, 313, 113 S.Ct. 2096, 2101, 124 L.Ed.2d 211, 221.  A rational relationship 
will exist under rational-basis review if ‘the relationship of the classification to its 
goal is not so attenuated as to render the distinction arbitrary or irrational, see 
Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., Inc. [1985], 473 U.S. [432], 446 [105 S.Ct. 
3249, 3257, 87 L.Ed.2d 313, 324].’  Nordlinger v. Hahn (1992), 505 U.S. 1, 11, 
112 S.Ct. 2326, 2332, 120 L.Ed.2d 1, 13. 
{¶27} “Importantly, a state has no obligation whatsoever ‘to produce 
evidence to sustain the rationality of a statutory classification.’  Heller v. Doe 
(1993), 509 U.S. 312, 320, 113 S.Ct. 2637, 2643, 125 L.Ed.2d 257, 271.  ‘[A] 
legislative choice * * * may be based on rational speculation unsupported by 
evidence or empirical data.’  Beach Communications, supra, 508 U.S. at 315, 113 
S.Ct. at 2102, 124 L.Ed.2d at 222.  ‘ “[T]he burden is on the one attacking the 
legislative arrangement to negative every conceivable basis which might support 
it.” ’  Heller, supra, quoting Lehnhausen v. Lake Shore Auto Parts Co. (1973), 
410 U.S. 356, 364, 93 S.Ct. 1001, 1006, 35 L.Ed.2d 351, 358.  Furthermore, 
‘courts are compelled under rational-basis review to accept a legislature’s 
generalizations even when there is an imperfect fit between means and ends.  A 
classification does not fail rational-basis review because “ ‘* * * in practice it 
results in some inequality.’ ”  Dandridge v. Williams [1970], 397 U.S. [471] 485 
[90 S.Ct. 1153, 1161, 25 L.Ed.2d 491, 501-502], quoting Lindsley v. Natural 
Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U.S. 61, 78 [31 S.Ct. 337, 340, 55 L.Ed. 369, 377] (1911).  
* * *’  Heller, 509 U.S. at 321, 113 S.Ct. at 2643, 125 L.Ed.2d at 271.”  Am. Assn. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
 
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of Univ. Professors, Cent. State Univ. Chapter, 87 Ohio St.3d at 58, 717 N.E.2d 
286. 
{¶28} Here, the 1973 Legislative Service Commission comment to 1972 
Am.Sub.H.B. No. 511 stated that “[t]he rationale for prohibiting indiscreet 
solicitation of deviate conduct is that the solicitation in itself can be highly 
repugnant to the person solicited, and there is a risk that it may provoke a violent 
response.”  Thus, by confining its prohibition to the solicitation of what the 
General Assembly described as “deviate conduct,” the legislature found that 
same-sex solicitation is more likely to induce violence than solicitations between 
members of opposite genders.  Legislatures are permitted to so generalize in their 
collective decision-making.  Because courts may not indulge any personal 
intuition to the contrary, almost any classification survives “mere rationality” 
review.  The classification must be upheld so long as it is conceivable that the 
classification bears a rational relationship to a legitimate governmental objective. 
{¶29} Therefore, in the words of Fed. Communications Comm. v. Beach 
Communications, Inc., 508 U.S. at 313, 113 S.Ct. 2096, 124 L.Ed.2d 211, there is 
a “reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for 
th[is] classification”: preventing violence by prohibiting that which is likely to 
induce it.  While the generalization underlying the classification may not be one 
that any member of this court would endorse, our role is to accept the legislature’s 
proposition unless Thompson negates “every conceivable basis which might 
support it.”  Id. at 315, 113 S.Ct. 2096, 124 L.Ed.2d 211.  Thompson has failed to 
do this.  Thus, we could not say that the relationship of the classification to its 
goal is “so attenuated as to render the distinction arbitrary or irrational.”  
Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 446, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 87 L.Ed.2d 313.  Only by ignoring the 
stated rationale behind R.C. 2907.07(B) is the concurrence able to make the 
January Term, 2002 
13 
conclusory determination that “the classification drawn in R.C. 2907.07(B) is not 
rationally related to a legitimate government purpose.” 
{¶30} Nevertheless, R.C. 2907.07(B) implicates a fundamental right, 
necessitating the strict-scrutiny review we employ. 
IV 
{¶31} It is well settled that “[t]he First and Fourteenth Amendments 
forbid discrimination in the regulation of expression on the basis of the content of 
that expression.”  Carey v. Brown (1980), 447 U.S. 455, 463, 100 S.Ct. 2286, 65 
L.Ed.2d 263, fn. 7.  See, also, Burson, 504 U.S. at 197, 112 S.Ct. 1846, 119 
L.Ed.2d 5, fn. 3 (plurality opinion).  Accordingly, we find that R.C. 2907.07(B) is 
facially invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States 
Constitution and Section 2, Article I of the Ohio Constitution.  We therefore 
reverse Thompson’s conviction. 
Judgment reversed. 
 
F.E. SWEENEY, J., concurs. 
 
MOYER, C.J., RESNICK and LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur in syllabus 
and judgment. 
 
DOUGLAS, J., concurs in judgment and in the concurrence of Justice 
Pfeifer. 
 
PFEIFER, J., concurs separately. 
__________________ 
 
PFEIFER, J., concurring. 
{¶32} The lead opinion rightly determines that R.C. 2907.07(B) violates 
the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 2, 
Article I of the Ohio Constitution.  Therefore, I concur in the judgment and the 
syllabus.  I write separately because the lead opinion has not addressed the central 
issue of the case, the only issue that was argued by the parties: whether R.C. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
 
14
2907.07(B) unconstitutionally distinguishes between people who seek to engage 
in homosexual activity and people who seek to engage in heterosexual activity. 
{¶33} Instead, the lead opinion finds R.C. 2907.07(B) to be a  “content-
based restriction on speech, which by extension violates the equal protection 
guarantees of both the United States and Ohio Constitutions.”  The obvious intent 
of R.C. 2907.07(B) is to restrict homosexual activity, not speech, as the lead 
opinion would have us believe.  In the same way, the obvious intent of R.C. 
2907.24, which prohibits the solicitation of another person to engage in sexual 
activity for hire, is to restrict prostitution, not speech. 
{¶34} I would directly address the issue that the parties raised.  I would 
find that the classification drawn in R.C. 2907.07(B) does not survive rational-
basis scrutiny.  Clark v. Jeter (1988), 486 U.S. 456, 461, 108 S.Ct. 1910, 100 
L.Ed.2d 465.  There is no rational reason for the state to treat people who seek to 
engage in homosexual activity as criminals when it does not treat people who seek 
to engage in heterosexual activity as criminals.  Even the state, in its brief to this 
court, expressed reservations about such a distinction.  Because the classification 
drawn in R.C. 2907.07(B) is not rationally related to a legitimate government 
purpose, I conclude that it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth 
Amendment to the United States Constitution.  For the same reason, I conclude 
that R.C. 2907.07(B) violates Section 2, Article I of the Ohio Constitution.  
Accordingly, I would also reverse State v. Phipps (1979), 58 Ohio St.2d 271, 12 
O.O.3d 273, 389 N.E.2d 1128. 
 
DOUGLAS, J., concurs in judgment and in the foregoing opinion. 
__________________ 
Thomas L. Sartini, Ashtabula County Prosecuting Attorney, Ariana E. 
Tarighati, Chief Assistant Prosecutor, and Angela M. Scott, Assistant Prosecuting 
Attorney, for appellee. 
January Term, 2002 
15 
Ashtabula County Public Defender, Inc., and Marie Lane, for appellant. 
Heather C. Sawyer, urging reversal for amici curiae Lambda Legal 
Defense and Education, Inc., the Ohio Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, 
and the Ohio Human Rights Bar Association. 
__________________