Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 639.0

524US2

Unit: $U95

[09-06-00 18:40:44] PAGES PGT: OPIN

594

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR ARTS v. FINLEY

Scalia, J., concurring in judgment

The “political context surrounding the adoption of the
‘decency and respect’ clause,” which the Court discusses
at some length, ante, at 581, does not change its meaning or
affect its constitutionality. All that is proved by the various
statements that the Court quotes from the Report of the
Independent Commission and the ﬂoor debates is (1) that the
provision was not meant categorically to exclude any partic-
ular viewpoint (which I have conceded, and which is plain
from the text), and (2) that the language was not meant to
do anything that is unconstitutional. That in no way propels
the Court’s leap to the countertextual conclusion that the
provision was merely “aimed at reforming procedures,” and
cannot be “utilized as a tool for invidious viewpoint discrimi-
nation,” ante, at 582.
It is evident in the legislative history
that § 954(d)(1) was prompted by, and directed at, the public
funding of such offensive productions as Serrano’s “Piss
Christ,” the portrayal of a cruciﬁx immersed in urine, and
Mapplethorpe’s show of
lurid homoerotic photographs.
Thus, even if one strays beyond the plain text it is perfectly
clear that the statute was meant to disfavor—that is, to
discriminate against—such productions. Not to ban their
funding absolutely, to be sure (though as I shall discuss, that
also would not have been unconstitutional), but to make their
funding more difﬁcult.

More fundamentally, of course, all this legislative history
has no valid claim upon our attention at all.
It is a virtual
certainty that very few of the Members of Congress who
voted for this language both (1) knew of, and (2) agreed with,
the various statements that the Court has culled from the
Report of the Independent Commission and the ﬂoor debate
(probably conducted on an almost empty ﬂoor). And it is
wholly irrelevant that the statute was a “bipartisan proposal
introduced as a counterweight” to an alternative proposal
that would directly restrict funding on the basis of view-
point. See ante, at 581–582. We do not judge statutes as