Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703, 34 (2000)

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736

HILL v. COLORADO

Souter, J., concurring

permissible behavior meant to shock members of the speak-er's audience, see United States v. O'Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 376 (1968) (burning draft card), or to guarantee their attention, see Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77, 86-88 (1949) (sound trucks); Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S. 474, 484-485 (1988) (residential picketing); Heffron v. International Soc. for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U. S. 640, 647-648 (1981) (soliciting). Unless regulation limited to the details of a speaker's delivery results in removing a subject or viewpoint from effective discourse (or otherwise fails to advance a significant public interest in a way narrowly fitted to that objective), a reasonable restriction intended to affect only the time, place, or manner of speaking is perfectly valid. See Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U. S. 781, 791 (1989) ("Our cases make clear . . . that even in a public forum the government may impose reasonable restrictions on the time, place, or manner of protected speech, provided the restrictions 'are justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech, that they are narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest, and that they leave open ample alternative channels for communication of the information' " (quoting Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U. S. 288, 293 (1984))); 491 U. S., at 797 ("[O]ur cases quite clearly hold that restrictions on the time, place, or manner of protected speech are not invalid 'simply because there is some imaginable alternative that might be less burdensome on speech' " (quoting United States v. Albertini, 472 U. S. 675, 689 (1985))).

It is important to recognize that the validity of punishing some expressive conduct, and the permissibility of a time, place, or manner restriction, does not depend on showing that the particular behavior or mode of delivery has no association with a particular subject or opinion. Draft card burners disapprove of the draft, see United States v. O'Brien, supra, at 370, and abortion protesters believe abortion is morally wrong, Madsen v. Women's Health Center,

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