Cite as: 518 U. S. 727 (1996)
Souter, J., concurring
for declining to decide the precise doctrinal categories that should govern the issue at hand. The value of the categorical approach generally to First Amendment security prompts a word to explain why I join the Court's unwillingness to announce a definitive categorical analysis in these cases.
Neither the speech nor the limitation at issue here may be categorized simply by content. Our prior case most nearly on point dealt not with a flat restriction covering a separate category of indecency at the First Amendment's periphery, but with less than a total ban, directed to instances of indecent speech easily available to children through broadcasts readily received in the household and difficult or impossible to control without immediate supervision. See FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U. S. 726, 747 (1978) (plurality opinion) ("It is a characteristic of speech such as this that both its capacity to offend and its 'social value' . . . vary with the circumstances").2 It is not surprising that so contextually complex a category was not expressly assigned a standard level of scrutiny for reviewing the Government's limitation at issue there.3
Nor does the fact that we deal in these cases with cable transmission necessarily suggest that a simple category sub-2 Our indecency cases since Pacifica have likewise turned as much on the context or medium of the speech as on its content. See, e. g., Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U. S. 115, 127-128 (1989) (distinguishing Pacifica in part on the ground that the telephonic medium at issue was less intrusive than broadcast television); Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U. S. 41, 47, 54 (1986) (permitting zoning regulation of adult theaters based on their "secondary effects"); Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 685-686 (1986) (upholding restriction on indecent speech in a public school).
3 Our analysis of another important strand of the present cases, the right of owners of the means of communication to refuse to serve as conduits for messages they dislike, has been equally contextual. Compare Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U. S. 367 (1969) (upholding a right-of-reply requirement in the broadcasting context), with Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U. S. 241 (1974) (rejecting such a requirement for print journalism).
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