Secondary effects and public morality

Introduction: When may the state regulate constitutionally protected activity in the interests of public morality? In Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc., City of Erie v. Pap’s A.M., and City of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc., the Supreme Court considered First Amendment challenges to three state regulations of adult businesses. The controversial subject matter of the cases, against the backdrop of expanding First Amendment protections and changing societal mores, exposed a philosophical knot within the Court’s jurisprudence. And a difficult one at that: the three cases resulted in twelve opinions authored by seven different Justices and brought into focus an unresolved tension surrounding the legitimacy of morality as a basis for lawmaking. This Article examines the Justices’ struggle to reconcile the intuitive sense that adult businesses can be detrimental to society at large with two countervailing forces: first, the common opinion that the state has no business legislating morality, and second, that the First Amendment now affords wide protection to activities once considered obscene and meriting little constitutional protection..