590
Opinion of Stevens, J.
public health or public morals might reasonably be characterized by a state legislature as relating to 'vice activity.' " Id., at 514. That is why "a 'vice' label that is unaccompanied by a corresponding prohibition against the commercial behavior at issue fails to provide a principled justification for the regulation of commercial speech about that activity." Ibid.
No legislature has ever sought to restrict speech about an activity it regarded as harmless and inoffensive. Calls for limits on expression always are made when the specter of some threatened harm is looming. The identity of the harm may vary. People will be inspired by totalitarian dogmas and subvert the Republic. They will be inflamed by racial demagoguery and embrace hatred and bigotry. Or they will be enticed by cigarette advertisements and choose to smoke, risking disease. It is therefore no answer for the State to say that the makers of cigarettes are doing harm: perhaps they are. But in that respect they are no different from the purveyors of other harmful products, or the advocates of harmful ideas. When the State seeks to silence them, they are all entitled to the protection of the First Amendment.
Justice Souter, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join Parts I, II-C, II-D, III-A, III-B-1, III-C, and III-D of the Court's opinion. I join Part I of the opinion of Justice Stevens concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part, and dissenting in part. I respectfully dissent from Part III-B-2 of the opinion of the Court, and like Justice Stevens would remand for trial on the constitutionality of the 1,000-foot limit.
Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer join, and with whom Justice Souter joins as to Part I, concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part, and dissenting in part.
This suit presents two separate sets of issues. The first— involving pre-emption—is straightforward. The second—
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