2020.01.14 The Sun
THE Supreme Court has declined to review the public nudity convictions of three women who removed their bathing suit tops for a protest on a New Hampshire beach in 2016.
Heidi Lilley, Kia Sinclair, and Ginger Pierro were acting as part of the Free The Nipple campaign, a global effort advocating for the rights of women to go topless.
The three were arrested in the city of Laconia after refusing to put their tops back on when other beachgoers complained.
Pierro had been doing yoga, while the other two had been sunbathing.
Laconia's law on indecent exposure bans sex and nudity in public and prohibits the showing of female breasts with less than a fully-opaque covering of any part of the nipple.
In a 3-2 ruling last year, New Hampshire's highest court upheld the women's conviction, finding that their constitutional rights had not been violated.
The court ruled that Laconia's ordinance does not discriminate on the basis of gender or violate the women's right to free speech.
The justices of the US Supreme Court yesterday declined to review that decision.
Representing the women, Dan Hynes, said he was disappointed.
He said the three were considering their next option, including filing for relief in federal court and asking the New Hampshire legislature to “make it clear that towns and cities lack the authority to create violations of law involving someone's sex”.
“The government should not be allowed to create a crime that requires proof of someone's sex as an element of the offence.
“It is unfortunate that 100 years after being granted the right to vote, the City of Laconia has decided to keep women second class citizens, with permission of the New Hampshire Supreme Court.”
The question of topless bans on women has been heard in courts in several different states.
In February, the 10th Circut Court of Appeals blocked a law in Fort Collins, Colorago banning women going topless in public.
The judge in that case agreed with activists that the ban treated women and men differently.
However, a judge in Missouri ruled in October 2017 that a public indecency law allowing men but not women to show their nipples was not unconstitutional.
