Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 385.0

529US1

Unit: $U42

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310

ERIE v. PAP’S A. M.

Opinion of Souter, J.

Moreover, even were I to conclude that the city of Erie
had speciﬁcally singled out the activity of nude dancing,
I still would not ﬁnd that this regulation violated the First
Amendment unless I could be persuaded (as on this record I
cannot) that it was the communicative character of nude
dancing that prompted the ban. When conduct other than
speech itself is regulated,
it is my view that the First
Amendment is violated only “[w]here the government pro-
hibits conduct precisely because of its communicative attri-
butes.” Barnes, 501 U. S., at 577 (emphasis deleted). Here,
even if one hypothesizes that the city’s object was to sup-
press only nude dancing, that would not establish an intent
to suppress what (if anything) nude dancing communicates.
I do not feel the need, as the Court does, to identify some
“secondary effects” associated with nude dancing that the
city could properly seek to eliminate.
(I am highly skepti-
cal, to tell the truth, that the addition of pasties and
G-strings will at all reduce the tendency of establishments
such as Kandyland to attract crime and prostitution, and
hence to foster sexually transmitted disease.) The tradi-
tional power of government to foster good morals (bonos
mores), and the acceptability of the traditional judgment (if
Erie wishes to endorse it) that nude public dancing itself is
immoral, have not been repealed by the First Amendment.

Justice Souter, concurring in part and dissenting in

part.

I join Parts I and II of the Court’s opinion and agree with
the analytical approach that the plurality employs in decid-
ing this case. Erie’s stated interest in combating the sec-
ondary effects associated with nude dancing establishments
is an interest unrelated to the suppression of expression
under United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367 (1968), and the
city’s regulation is thus properly considered under the
O’Brien standards.
I do not believe, however, that the cur-
rent record allows us to say that the city has made a sufﬁ-