Court Opinion

ID: 9695127
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:08:25.758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:08.690410
License: Public Domain

G. BARRY ANDERSON, Judge
(concurring specially).
I agree with the majority regarding the disposition of this appeal but concur specially because I do not believe that the activity at issue here is protected by the First Amendment.
In U.S. v. O’Brien, four men burned their Selective Service registration certificates in violation of the Universal Military Training and Service Act to encourage “others to adopt [their] antiwar beliefs.” 391 U.S. 367, 369-70, 88 S.Ct. 1673, 1675, 20 L.Ed.2d 672 (1968). The men were prosecuted for this violation; their defense was that it was protected “symbolic speech” because they intended to convey an idea. Id. at 376, 88 S.Ct. at 1678. In rejecting this argument, the Court stated, “We cannot accept the view that an apparently limitless variety of conduct can be labeled ‘speech’ whenever the person engaging in the conduct intends thereby to express an idea.” Id. When analyzing restrictions on so-called symbolic speech, the Court enumerated a four-part test, all parts of which must be satisfied for the legislation to be constitutional: (1) the government making the law must have the constitutional authority to do so, (2) the law must serve “an important or substantial governmental interest,” (3) the interest must not be related to the suppression of free expression, and (4) the incidental restriction on expression must be no more than is necessary to achieve the governmental interest. Id. at 377, 88 S.Ct. at 1679.
Four years later, in California v. La-Rue, the Supreme Court stated that nude dancing is entitled to some constitutional protection, but observed that this form of “live entertainment” “partake[s] more of gross sexuality than of communication.” 409 U.S. 109, 118, 93 S.Ct. 390, 397, 34 L.Ed.2d 342 (1972). In Schad v. Borough of Mount Ephraim, the Court stated, “Entertainment, as well as political and ideological speech, is protected”; the Court continued that “an entertainment program” may not “be prohibited solely because it displays the nude human figure.” 452 U.S. 61, 65-66, 101 S.Ct. 2176, 2181, 68 L.Ed.2d 671 (1981).
The meaning of LaRue and Schad was clarified in Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc. where the Supreme Court noted, “[N]ude dancing ... is expressive conduct within the outer perimeters of the First Amendment.” 501 U.S. 560, 565-66, 111 S.Ct. 2456, 2460, 115 L.Ed.2d 504 (1991). Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has recently reiterated this position, noting that nude dancing is “expressive conduct” falling “within the outer ambit of the First Amendment’s protection.” City of Erie v. *471Pap’s A.M., 529 U.S. 277, 289, 120 S.Ct. 1382, 1391, 146 L.Ed.2d 265 (2000).
But the better position, and the position that does not necessitate the intellectual gymnastics created by an attempt to find what the “outer ambit” of the First Amendment means, is the position articulated by Justice Scalia in his Barnes concurrence where he correctly argued that statutes and ordinances prohibiting or restricting erotic dancing are “not subject to First Amendment scrutiny at all.” Barnes at 572, 111 S.Ct. at 2463 (Scalia, J., concurring). Justice Scalia noted that there is a long history in American law of prohibiting public nudity, and it is a recent development that such laws have been thought to have First Amendment implications. Id. at 572-73, 111 S.Ct. at 2464.
It is difficult, and ultimately a useless task, to attempt to define the “outer ambit” of the First Amendment that protects erotic dancing. The better approach is to recognize that erotic dancing is solely conduct and not entitled to First Amendment protection.