Also known as: indecencies · public indecency
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Speech or conduct that is patently offensive because of its vulgar sexual or excretory references. Unlike obscenity, such material receives First Amendment protection but remains subject to targeted regulation in broadcasting due to the medium's pervasiveness and accessibility to children.
Cedar Stream aired a full uncensored routine containing repeated graphic sexual descriptions and crude excretory jokes at 2:00 p.m. when many children were home unsupervised. The Department of Defense imposed civil sanctions on the network. The sanctions stand because the broadcast occurred during school hours without warnings and intruded directly into homes via free over-the-air television.
Ismael Ibrahim kept photographs depicting nude minors posed in a manner the state labeled lewd. Police arrested him under an Ohio statute. The conviction is upheld because the state may criminalize possession of such material even when it falls short of obscenity.
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Ike Ingram applied for an NEA grant to stage a performance incorporating explicit sexual imagery. The agency denied funding after considering the work's indecency. The denial is constitutional because the statute requires consideration of general standards of decency without imposing an outright ban on expression.
Ivan Ivanov and his partner were arrested in their bedroom under a Texas law criminalizing same-sex intimacy. They challenged the statute as an invalid restriction on private conduct. The law falls because it criminalizes private consensual adult activity without a legitimate state interest beyond moral disapproval.
Ilana Isaacs sought to perform totally nude at the Kitty Kat Lounge. Indiana enforced its public indecency statute requiring pasties and G-strings. The requirement is valid because the state may regulate public nudity to protect order and morality without targeting the expressive content of the dance.
Ivy Investments operated a cable channel that transmitted adult programming during evening hours. Congress required full scrambling of the signal to prevent signal bleed into non-subscribing homes. The requirement is unconstitutional because it burdens protected speech without the least restrictive means of shielding children.
Indecent speech is patently offensive sexual or excretory content that lacks prurient appeal and therefore receives First Amendment protection. Obscenity lacks such protection entirely. Regulators may still sanction indecent broadcasts when children are likely in the audience because of the medium's unique intrusiveness into the home.
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The FCC must give broadcasters fair notice of any shift in enforcement standards. When the agency altered its policy without adequate warning, sanctions under the new standard violated due process because broadcasters could not reasonably anticipate the change.
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No. Moral disapproval alone supplies no legitimate state interest sufficient to justify criminalizing private consensual intimacy between adults. Such statutes fail even rational basis review when they target conduct occurring in the home without additional justification such as protecting minors or preventing coercion.
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…relied extensively on Bowers when we concluded, in Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc. , 501 U. S. 560, 569 (1991), that Indiana's public indecency statute furthered "a substantial government interest in protecting order and morality," ibid. (plurality opinion); see also id. , at 575 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment). State laws…