Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
True, the First Amendment protects speech and not slaughterhouses. But in both contexts, the inference of impermissible discrimination is not strong. An equally strong inference is that the ordinance is targeted not at the activity, but at its side effects. If a zoning ordinance is directed to the secondary effects of adult speech, the ordinance does not necessarily constitute impermissible content discrimination. A zoning law need not be blind to the secondary effects of adult speech, so long as the purpose of the law is not to suppress it.
The ordinance at issue in this case is not limited to expressive activities. It also extends, for example, to massage parlors, which the city has found to cause similar secondary effects. See Los Angeles Municipal Code §§ 12.70(B)(8) (1978), 12.70(B)(17) (1983), 12.70(C) (1986), as amended. This ordinance, moreover, is just one part of an elaborate web of land-use regulations in Los Angeles, all of which are intended to promote the social value of the land as a whole without suppressing some activities or favoring others. See § 12.02 ("The purpose of this article is to consolidate and coordinate all existing zoning regulations and provisions into one comprehensive zoning plan . . . in order to encourage the most appropriate use of land . . . and to promote the health, safety, and the general welfare . . ."). All this further suggests that the ordinance is more in the nature of a typical land-use restriction and less in the nature of a law suppressing speech.
For these reasons, the ordinance is not so suspect that we must employ the usual rigorous analysis that content-based laws demand in other instances. The ordinance may be a covert attack on speech, but we should not presume it to be so. In the language of our First Amendment doctrine it calls for intermediate and not strict scrutiny, as we held in Renton.
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