Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/09pdf/08-769.pdf
Page Number: 21

Cite as:  559 U. S. ____ (2010) 

17 

Opinion of the Court 

adequate  reading  of  the  exceptions  clause  that  results  in 
the statute’s banning only the depictions the Government
would like to ban. 

The  Government  explains  that  the  language  of  §48(b)
was largely drawn from our opinion in Miller v. California, 
413  U. S.  15  (1973),  which  excepted  from  its  definition  of 
obscenity  any  material  with  “serious  literary,  artistic,
political, or scientific value,” id., at 24.  See Reply Brief 8, 
9, and n. 5.  According to the Government, this incorpora-
tion  of  the  Miller  standard  into  §48  is  therefore  surely
enough to answer any First Amendment objection.  Reply
Brief 8–9. 

In Miller we held that “serious” value shields depictions
of  sex  from  regulation  as  obscenity.  413  U. S.,  at  24–25. 
Limiting Miller’s exception to “serious” value ensured that
“ ‘[a]  quotation  from  Voltaire  in  the  flyleaf  of  a  book 
[would]  not  constitutionally  redeem  an  otherwise  obscene 
publication.’ ”  Id.,  at  25,  n. 7  (quoting  Kois  v.  Wisconsin, 
408 U. S. 229, 231 (1972) (per curiam)).  We did not, how-
ever,  determine  that  serious  value  could  be  used  as  a 
general precondition to protecting other types of speech in 
the first place.  Most of what we say to one another lacks 
“religious,  political,  scientific,  educational,  journalistic, 
historical, or artistic value” (let alone serious value), but it 
is  still  sheltered  from  government  regulation.    Even 
“ ‘[w]holly  neutral  futilities  . . .  come  under  the  protection 
of free speech as fully as do Keats’ poems or Donne’s ser-
mons.’ ”  Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15, 25 (1971) (quot-
ing Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 528 (1948) (Frank-
furter, J., dissenting); alteration in original). 

Thus,  the  protection  of  the  First  Amendment  presump-
tively extends to many forms of speech that do not qualify 
for  the  serious-value  exception  of  §48(b),  but  nonetheless 
fall within the broad reach of §48(c).