Cite as: 505 U. S. 377 (1992)
Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
matter, the Court does just that.4 Perversely, this gives fighting words greater protection than is afforded commercial speech. If Congress can prohibit false advertising directed at airline passengers without also prohibiting false advertising directed at bus passengers and if a city can prohibit political advertisements in its buses while allowing other advertisements, it is ironic to hold that a city cannot regulate fighting words based on "race, color, creed, religion or gender" while leaving unregulated fighting words based on "union membership . . . or homosexuality." Ante, at 391. The Court today turns First Amendment law on its head: Communication that was once entirely unprotected (and that still can be wholly proscribed) is now entitled to greater protection than commercial speech—and possibly greater protection than core political speech. See Burson v. Freeman, 504 U. S. 191, 195, 196 (1992).
Perhaps because the Court recognizes these perversities, it quickly offers some ad hoc limitations on its newly extended prohibition on content-based regulations. First, the Court states that a content-based regulation is valid "[w]hen the basis for the content discrimination consists entirely of the very reason the entire class of speech . . . is proscribable." Ante, at 388. In a pivotal passage, the Court writes:
"[T]he Federal Government can criminalize only those threats of violence that are directed against the President, see 18 U. S. C. § 871—since the reasons why
4 The Court states that the prohibition on content-based regulations "applies differently in the context of proscribable speech" than in the context of other speech, ante, at 387, but its analysis belies that claim. The Court strikes down the St. Paul ordinance because it regulates fighting words based on subject matter, despite the fact that, as demonstrated above, we have long upheld regulations of commercial speech based on subject matter. The Court's self-description is inapt: By prohibiting the regulation of fighting words based on its subject matter, the Court provides the same protection to fighting words as is currently provided to core political speech.
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