Cite as: 518 U. S. 727 (1996)
Opinion of Kennedy, J.
skepticism about the possibility of courts drawing principled distinctions to use in judging governmental restrictions on speech and ideas, Cohen, 403 U. S., at 25, a concern heightened here by the inextricability of indecency from expression. "[W]e cannot indulge the facile assumption that one can forbid particular words without also running a substantial risk of suppressing ideas in the process." Id., at 26. The same is true of forbidding programs indecent in some respect. In artistic or political settings, indecency may have strong communicative content, protesting conventional norms or giving an edge to a work by conveying "otherwise inexpressible emotions." Ibid. In scientific programs, the more graphic the depiction (even if to the point of offensiveness), the more accurate and comprehensive the portrayal of the truth may be. Indecency often is inseparable from the ideas and viewpoints conveyed, or separable only with loss of truth or expressive power. Under our traditional First Amendment jurisprudence, factors perhaps justifying some restriction on indecent cable programming may all be taken into account without derogating this category of protected speech as marginal.
IV
At a minimum, the proper standard for reviewing §§ 10(a) and (c) is strict scrutiny. The plurality gives no reason why it should be otherwise. I would hold these enactments unconstitutional because they are not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest.
The Government has no compelling interest in restoring a cable operator's First Amendment right of editorial discretion. As to § 10(c), Congress has no interest at all, since under most franchises operators had no rights of editorial discretion over PEG access channels in the first place. As to § 10(a), any governmental interest in restoring operator discretion over indecent programming on leased access channels is too minimal to justify the law. First, the transmission of indecent programming over leased access channels
805
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