Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 368

529US1

Unit: $U42

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Cite as: 529 U. S. 277 (2000)

293

Opinion of O’Connor, J.

the effect of limiting one particular means of expressing the
kind of erotic message being disseminated at Kandyland.
But simply to deﬁne what is being banned as the “message”
is to assume the conclusion. We did not analyze the regula-
tion in O’Brien as having enacted a total ban on expression.
Instead, the Court recognized that the regulation against de-
stroying one’s draft card was justiﬁed by the Government’s
interest in preventing the harmful “secondary effects” of
that conduct (disruption to the Selective Service System),
even though that regulation may have some incidental effect
on the expressive element of the conduct. Because this jus-
tiﬁcation was unrelated to the suppression of O’Brien’s anti-
war message, the regulation was content neutral. Although
there may be cases in which banning the means of expression
so interferes with the message that it essentially bans the
message, that is not the case here.

Even if we had not already rejected the view that a ban
on public nudity is necessarily related to the suppression of
the erotic message of nude dancing, we would do so now
because the premise of such a view is ﬂawed. The State’s
interest in preventing harmful secondary effects is not re-
lated to the suppression of expression.
In trying to control
the secondary effects of nude dancing, the ordinance seeks
to deter crime and the other deleterious effects caused by
the presence of such an establishment in the neighborhood.
See Renton, supra, at 50–51.
In Clark v. Community for
Creative Non-Violence, 468 U. S. 288 (1984), we held that
a National Park Service regulation prohibiting camping in
certain parks did not violate the First Amendment when ap-
plied to prohibit demonstrators from sleeping in Lafayette
Park and the Mall in Washington, D. C., in connection with
a demonstration intended to call attention to the plight of
the homeless. Assuming, arguendo, that sleeping can be ex-
pressive conduct, the Court concluded that the Government
interest in conserving park property was unrelated to the
Id., at 299.
demonstrators’ message about homelessness.