Cite as: 505 U. S. 377 (1992)
Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
The Court writes:
"One could hold up a sign saying, for example, that all 'anti-Catholic bigots' are misbegotten; but not that all 'papists' are, for that would insult and provoke violence 'on the basis of religion.' " Ante, at 391-392.
This may be true, but it hardly proves the Court's point. The Court's reasoning is asymmetrical. The response to a sign saying that "all [religious] bigots are misbegotten" is a sign saying that "all advocates of religious tolerance are misbegotten." Assuming such signs could be fighting words (which seems to me extremely unlikely), neither sign would be banned by the ordinance for the attacks were not "based on . . . religion" but rather on one's beliefs about tolerance. Conversely (and again assuming such signs are fighting words), just as the ordinance would prohibit a Muslim from hoisting a sign claiming that all Catholics were misbegotten, so the ordinance would bar a Catholic from hoisting a similar sign attacking Muslims.
The St. Paul ordinance is evenhanded. In a battle between advocates of tolerance and advocates of intolerance, the ordinance does not prevent either side from hurling fighting words at the other on the basis of their conflicting ideas, but it does bar both sides from hurling such words on the basis of the target's "race, color, creed, religion or gender." To extend the Court's pugilistic metaphor, the St. Paul ordinance simply bans punches "below the belt"— by either party. It does not, therefore, favor one side of any debate.10
10 Cf. FCC v. League of Women Voters of Cal., 468 U. S. 364, 418 (1984) (Stevens, J., dissenting) ("In this case . . . the regulation applies . . . to a defined class of . . . licensees [who] represent heterogenous points of view. There is simply no sensible basis for considering this regulation a viewpoint restriction—or . . . to condemn it as 'content-based'—because it applies equally to station owners of all shades of opinion").
435
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