Cite as: 535 U. S. 564 (2002)
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
For this reason the Court of Appeals was correct to focus on COPA's incorporation of varying community standards; and it may have been correct as well to conclude that in practical effect COPA imposes the most puritanical community standard on the entire country. We have observed that it is "neither realistic nor constitutionally sound to read the First Amendment as requiring that the people of Maine or Mississippi accept public depiction of conduct found tolerable in Las Vegas, or New York City." Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15, 32 (1973). On the other hand, it is neither realistic nor beyond constitutional doubt for Congress, in effect, to impose the community standards of Maine or Mississippi on Las Vegas and New York. "People in different States vary in their tastes and attitudes, and this diversity is not to be strangled by the absolutism of imposed uniformity." Id., at 33. In striking down COPA's predecessor, the Reno Court identified this precise problem, and if the Hamling and Sable Courts did not find the problem fatal, that is because those cases involved quite different media. The national variation in community standards constitutes a particular burden on Internet speech.
III
The question that remains is whether this observation "by itself" suffices to enjoin the Act. See ante, at 585. I agree with the Court that it does not. Ibid. We cannot know whether variation in community standards renders the Act substantially overbroad without first assessing the extent of the speech covered and the variations in community standards with respect to that speech.
First, the breadth of the Act itself will dictate the degree of overbreadth caused by varying community standards. Indeed, Justice Thomas sees this point and uses it in an attempt to distinguish the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which was at issue in Reno. See ante, at 577-578 ("The CDA's use of community standards to identify patently
597
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