478
Souter, J., dissenting
justifies the protection of those who object to subsidizing it against their will. I therefore conclude that forced payment for commercial speech should be subject to the same level of judicial scrutiny as any restriction on communications in that category. Because I believe that the advertising scheme here fails that test, I respectfully dissent.
I
The nub of the Court's opinion is its reading of the line of cases following Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed., 431 U. S. 209 (1977):
"Abood, and the cases that follow it, did not announce a broad First Amendment right not to be compelled to provide financial support for any organization that conducts expressive activities. Rather, Abood merely recognized a First Amendment interest in not being compelled to contribute to an organization whose expressive activities conflict with one's 'freedom of belief.' " Ante, at 471 (quoting Abood, supra, at 235).
While I certainly agree with the Court that a proper understanding of Abood is necessary for the disposition of this case (and will dwell on the scope of its holding at some length below), it seems to me that Abood appears more readily in its proper size if we begin our analysis with two more basic principles of First Amendment law: that speech as such is subject to some level of protection unless it falls within a category, such as obscenity, placing it beyond the Amendment's scope, and that protected speech may not be made the subject of coercion to speak or coercion to subsidize speech.
A
Even before we first recognized commercial speech protection in Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U. S. 748 (1976), we had stated a basic proposition of First Amendment protection, that "[a]ll
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