Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/18-302_e29g.pdf
Page Number: 36.0

Cite as:  588 U. S. ____ (2019) 

11 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

liberated  and  feel  that  they  cannot  express  that  view 
sufficiently  without  the  use  of  pornographic  words  or 
images.  That does not automatically make a restriction on
pornography  into  viewpoint  discrimination,  despite  the 
fact  that  such  a  restriction  limits  communicating  one’s 
views on sexual liberation in that way.  See ibid.; Renton 
v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U. S. 41, 48 (1986). 

Restrictions  on  particular  modes  of  expression  do  not
inherently  qualify  as  viewpoint  discrimination;  they  are 
not by nature examples of “the government target[ing] . . . 
particular  views  taken  by  speakers  on  a  subject.”    Rosen-
berger,  515  U. S.,  at  829.    For  example,  a  ban  on  lighting 
fires in the town square does not facially violate the First 
Amendment simply because it makes it marginally harder 
for  would-be  flag-burners  to  express  their  views  in  that 
place.  See R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 385 (1992).
By  the  same  token,  “fighting  words  are  categorically  ex-
cluded  from  the  protection  of  the  First  Amendment”  not 
because  they  have  no  content  or  express  no  viewpoint 
(often  quite  the  opposite),  but  because  “their  content  em-
bodies a particularly intolerable (and socially unnecessary) 
mode  of  expressing  whatever  idea  the  speaker  wishes  to 
convey.” 
Id.,  at  393;  see  id.,  at  385–386;  cf.  Bolger  v. 
Youngs Drug Products Corp., 463 U. S. 60, 84 (1983) (Ste-
vens,  J.,  concurring  in  judgment)  (“It  matters  whether  a 
law  regulates  communications  for  their  ideas  or  for  their
style”).

A restriction on trademarks featuring obscenity, vulgar-
ity, or profanity is similarly viewpoint neutral, though it is
naturally  content-based.6   See  R.  A.  V.,  505  U. S.,  at  383 

—————— 

6 Of  course,  obscenity  itself  is  subject  to  a  longstanding  exception  to 
First  Amendment  protection,  see  Brown  v.  Entertainment  Merchants 
Assn., 564 U. S. 786, 791 (2011), so it is proscribable in any event.  As 
for  vulgarity  and  profanity,  however,  they  are  not  subject  to  any  such 
exception,  and  a  regulation  like  §1052(a)’s  ban  on  the  registration  of 
scandalous  marks  is  not  “ ‘justified  without  reference  to  the  content  of