898
Souter, J., dissenting
With this understanding, it was unremarkable that in Lamb's Chapel we unanimously determined that the access restriction, as applied to a speaker wishing to discuss family values from a Christian perspective, impermissibly distinguished between speakers on the basis of viewpoint. See Lamb's Chapel, supra, at 393-394 (considering as-applied challenge only). Equally obvious is the distinction between that case and this one, where the regulation is being applied, not to deny funding for those who discuss issues in general from a religious viewpoint, but to those engaged in promoting or opposing religious conversion and religious observances as such. If this amounts to viewpoint discrimination, the Court has all but eviscerated the line between viewpoint and content.
To put the point another way, the Court's decision equating a categorical exclusion of both sides of the religious debate with viewpoint discrimination suggests the Court has concluded that primarily religious and antireligious speech, grouped together, always provides an opposing (and not merely a related) viewpoint to any speech about any secular topic. Thus, the Court's reasoning requires a university that funds private publications about any primarily nonreliuse school property under the rules of the forum. Id., at 47, 57-58. The complete exchange during the oral argument in Lamb's Chapel went as follows:
"QUESTION: But do I understand your statement you made earlier that supposing you had a communist group that wanted to address the subject of family values and they thought there was a value in not having children waste their time going to Sunday school or church and therefore they had a point of view that was definitely antireligious, they would be permitted, under your policy, to discuss family values in that context?
"[COUNSEL]: Yes. Yes, Your Honor, that's correct.
. . . . . "QUESTION: Counsel, in your earlier discussions with [the Court] you indicated that communists would be able to give their perspective on family. I—I assume from that that atheists would be able to give theirs under your rules.
"[COUNSEL]: Yes, Your Honor."
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