Opinion ID: 2265911
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Tax Regulates Nudity, Rather Than Nude Dancing, and Is Therefore Facially Content Neutral

Text: ¶ 14 The starting point for analysis of a regulation that impacts expressive conduct is the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. O'Brien, where the Court rejected the proposition that a limitless variety of conduct qualifies as speech simply because it is potentially expressive. [24] Because all conduct is potentially expressive, holding that each law regulating conduct implicates the First Amendment would largely eviscerate the distinction between conduct and speech. ¶ 15 Instead, the Court has recognized that regulations of conduct, so long as the conduct is not inherently expressive, should be treated as content neutral if the regulations are neutral as to message. [25] This is so because, in order to be content based, a regulation must classify based on the content of protected expression. A regulation that classifies based on unprotected conduct by definition does not classify based on protected expression and therefore is not content based. While regulations of unprotected conduct are still subject to First Amendment scrutiny when they burden protected expression, [26] they are scrutinized at a lower level since the concerns that prompt strict scrutiny are absent when conduct, rather than speech, is the triggering factor. [27] ¶ 16 In this case, application of the Tax is triggered by nudity, which the Supreme Court has specifically declared is not an inherently expressive condition. [28] Because it is not inherently expressive, nudity is unprotected conduct rather than protected expression. Accordingly, in Erie, the Court clarif[ied] that government restrictions on public nudity . . . should be evaluated under the framework set forth in O'Brien for content-neutral restrictions on symbolic speech. [29] The Court rejected the argument that a ban on nudity was necessarily a ban on the message conveyed, distinguishing nudity as a means of expression rather than protected expression itself. [30] ¶ 17 Facially, at least in terms of the content-neutrality analysis, the Tax is indistinguishable from the public nudity ordinance upheld in Erie. Like that ordinance, the Tax regulates the condition of nuditynot just specific instances of protected expression, like nude dancing. [31] Also like the Erie ordinance, the Tax applies or does not apply without reference to either protected expression or any particular message. The Tax simply cannot be facially content based because its triggernudityis not content since it is not protected expression. On its face, therefore, the Tax is conduct based, rather than content based, and as such is facially content neutral.