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ERIE v. PAP’S A. M.

Opinion of O’Connor, J.

sage of the dance. Because the Pennsylvania court agreed
with Justice White’s approach, it concluded that the ordi-
nance must have another, “unmentioned” purpose related to
the suppression of expression. 553 Pa., at 359, 719 A. 2d, at
279. That is, the Pennsylvania court adopted the dissent’s
view in Barnes that “ ‘[s]ince the State permits the dancers
to perform if they wear pasties and G-strings but forbids
nude dancing, it is precisely because of the distinctive, ex-
pressive content of the nude dancing performances at issue
in this case that the State seeks to apply the statutory prohi-
bition.”
553 Pa., at 359, 719 A. 2d, at 279 (quoting Barnes,
supra, at 592 (White, J., dissenting)). A majority of the
Court rejected that view in Barnes, and we do so again here.
Respondent’s argument that the ordinance is “aimed” at
suppressing expression through a ban on nude dancing—an
argument that respondent supports by pointing to state-
ments by the city attorney that the public nudity ban was
not intended to apply to “legitimate” theater productions—
is really an argument that the city council also had an illicit
motive in enacting the ordinance. As we have said before,
however, this Court will not strike down an otherwise con-
stitutional statute on the basis of an alleged illicit motive.
O’Brien, supra, at 382–383; Renton v. Playtime Theatres,
Inc., supra, at 47–48 (that the “predominate” purpose of the
statute was to control secondary effects was “more than ade-
quate to establish” that the city’s interest was unrelated to
the suppression of expression).
In light of the Pennsylvania
court’s determination that one purpose of the ordinance is to
combat harmful secondary effects, the ban on public nudity
here is no different from the ban on burning draft registra-
tion cards in O’Brien, where the Government sought to pre-
vent the means of the expression and not the expression of
antiwar sentiment itself.

Justice Stevens argues that the ordinance enacts a
complete ban on expression. We respectfully disagree with
that characterization. The public nudity ban certainly has