Cite as: 538 U. S. 343 (2003)
Opinion of Souter, J.
tinction we considered in R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377 (1992). I disagree that any exception should save Virginia's law from unconstitutionality under the holding in R. A. V. or any acceptable variation of it.
I
The ordinance struck down in R. A. V., as it had been construed by the State's highest court, prohibited the use of symbols (including but not limited to a burning cross) as the equivalent of generally proscribable fighting words, but the ordinance applied only when the symbol was provocative " 'on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender.' " Id., at 380 (quoting St. Paul, Minn., Legis. Code § 292.02 (1990)). Although the Virginia statute in issue here contains no such express "basis of" limitation on prohibited subject matter, the specific prohibition of cross burning with intent to intimidate selects a symbol with particular content from the field of all proscribable expression meant to intimidate. To be sure, that content often includes an essentially intimidating message, that the cross burner will harm the victim, most probably in a physical way, given the historical identification of burning crosses with arson, beating, and lynching. But even when the symbolic act is meant to terrify, a burning cross may carry a further, ideological message of white Protestant supremacy. The ideological message not only accompanies many threatening uses of the symbol, but is also expressed when a burning cross is not used to threaten but merely to symbolize the supremacist ideology and the solidarity of those who espouse it. As the majority points out, the burning cross can broadcast threat and ideology together, ideology alone, or threat alone, as was apparently the choice of respondents Elliott and O'Mara. Ante, at 354- 357, 363.
The issue is whether the statutory prohibition restricted to this symbol falls within one of the exceptions to R. A. V.'s general condemnation of limited content-based proscription
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