Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 399

529US1

Unit: $U42

[10-11-01 11:58:08] PAGES PGT: OPIN

324

ERIE v. PAP’S A. M.

Stevens, J., dissenting

combating such effects,” ante, at 301; see also ante, at 289.
It is one thing to say, however, that O’Brien is more leni-
ent than the “more demanding standard” we have imposed
in cases such as Texas v. Johnson, 491 U. S. 397 (1989).
See ante, at 289.
It is quite another to say that the test
can be satisﬁed by nothing more than the mere possibility of
de minimis effects on the neighborhood.

The plurality is also mistaken in equating our secondary
effects cases with the “incidental burdens” doctrine applied
in cases such as O’Brien; and it aggravates the error by in-
voking the latter line of cases to support its assertion that
Erie’s ordinance is unrelated to speech. The incidental bur-
dens doctrine applies when “ ‘speech’ and ‘nonspeech’ ele-
ments are combined in the same course of conduct,” and the
government’s interest in regulating the latter justiﬁes inci-
dental burdens on the former. O’Brien, 391 U. S., at 376.
Secondary effects, on the other hand, are indirect conse-
quences of protected speech and may justify regulation of
the places where that speech may occur. See American
Mini Theatres, 427 U. S., at 71, n. 34 (“[A] concentration of
‘adult’ movie theaters causes the area to deteriorate and be-
come a focus of crime”).6 When a State enacts a regulation,
it might focus on the secondary effects of speech as its aim,
or it might concentrate on nonspeech related concerns, hav-
ing no thoughts at all with respect to how its regulation will
affect speech—and only later, when the regulation is found
to burden speech, justify the imposition as an unintended
incidental consequence.7 But those interests are not the

6 A secondary effect on the neighborhood that “happen[s] to be associ-
ated with” a form of speech is, of course, critically different from “the
direct impact of speech on its audience.” Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S. 312,
320–321 (1988). The primary effect of speech is the persuasive effect of
the message itself.

7 In fact, the very notion of focusing in on incidental burdens at the time
of enactment appears to be a contradiction in terms. And if it were not
the case that there is a difference between laws aimed at secondary effects
and general bans incidentally burdening speech, then one wonders why