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Supreme Court Declines To Hear ‘Free The Nipple’ Case

   DailyWire.com
Bra
Photo by Eskay Lim/EyeEm/GettyImages

The nipple will remain in bondage, at least for now.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from three women from the Free the Nipple movement, who filed suit after they were arrested for publicly exposing their breasts.

The women challenged a Laconia, N.H., law that forbids topless women. The law says it is illegal to show female breasts in public “with less than a fully opaque covering of any part of the nipple.” The women argued in their suit that their constitutional rights were being infringed simply because they are women.

“They were arrested and prosecuted as women for doing what any man may lawfully do,” the women wrote in their petition to the Supreme Court. “For being both topless and female in public, each was convicted of violating an ordinance criminalizing the public exposure of her ‘female breast.’ ”

The women argued that a law that punishes women for exposing their breasts but lets men do so violates the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which mandates that laws must be applied equally to everyone.

The women — Heidi Lilley, Kia Sinclair and Ginger Pierro — were arrested in 2016 for being topless on a public beach. Pierro was arrested on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, where she was doing yoga while topless. Lilley and Sinclair were arrested days later while topless on another beach, protesting Pierro’s arrest.

The three women each were given suspended fines of $100 each on condition that they exhibit good behavior.

Last year, they lost their case in the New Hampshire Supreme Court, which ruled that the law did not discriminate against women because it bars “nudity” for both men and women. The court also said that the definition of nudity is based on “the traditional understanding of what constitutes nudity.”

The court said the sexes “are not fungible” as far as what constitutes nudity. Public exposure of the female breast “almost invariably conveys sexual overtones,” the state court said, following most lower courts.

The women then appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. They were part of the “Free the Nipple” movement, which court papers said is a campaign against “sexualized objectification of women,” as well as pushing for women to be allowed to go topless in public.

As is usual, the Supreme Court issued no comment on the case after refusing to hear the appeal.

Last February, the federal appeals court for the 10th Circuit struck down a topless ban in Fort Collins, outside of Denver.

The ruling said there is no justification for treating men and women differently when they bare their chests. Society’s sexualization, the court said, “has engrained in us the stereotype that the primary purpose for women’s breasts is sex, not feeding babies.” Such stereotypes, the ruling said, “serves the function of keeping women in their place.”

The Free The Nipple movement was inspired by a 2012 film of the same name, which followed a group of women attempting to do just that. Their official website reads: “We are a global movement of equality, empowerment and freedom. We are a movement of change.”

 

 

 

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