Opinion ID: 2051043
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Content-Based Regulations

Text: A far more stringent test is applied to a regulation that restricts speech because of its content. At the heart of the First Amendment lies the principle that each person should decide for himself or herself the ideas and beliefs deserving of expression, consideration, and adherence. Turner, 512 U.S. at 641, 114 S.Ct. at 2458, 129 L.Ed.2d at 517. For this reason, the first amendment does not generally countenance governmental control over the content of messages expressed by private individuals. Turner, 512 U.S. at 641, 114 S.Ct. at 2458, 129 L.Ed.2d at 517; see also People v. Sanders, 182 Ill.2d 524, 529, 231 Ill.Dec. 573, 696 N.E.2d 1144 (1998). Regulations that restrict speech because of its content are therefore subjected to the most exacting scrutiny. Turner, 512 U.S. at 642, 114 S.Ct. at 2459, 129 L.Ed.2d at 517. Content-based regulations are presumptively invalid ( R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 382, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 2542, 120 L.Ed.2d 305, 317 (1992)), and will be upheld only if necessary to serve a compelling governmental interest and narrowly drawn to achieve that end ( Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 270, 102 S.Ct. 269, 274, 70 L.Ed.2d 440, 447-48 (1981); Sanders, 182 Ill.2d at 530, 231 Ill.Dec. 573, 696 N.E.2d 1144). Generally, laws that by their terms distinguish favored speech from disfavored speech on the basis of the ideas or views expressed are content-based. Hence, in Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 455, 462, 100 S.Ct. 2286, 2291, 65 L.Ed.2d 263, 270 (1980), the Supreme Court held that a statute which exempted labor picketing from a prohibition on picketing was impermissibly content-based because it is the content of the speech that determines whether it is within or without the statute's blunt prohibition.