[CENSORSHIP] White House bans ‘disrespectful’ topless trans influencer Rose Montoya

I'm not qualified to speak on the topic, you'll have to ask him

 

@J.R. did do some pretty spectacular photoshopping with them though

 

and actually my interest in the subject is purely the free speech angle . . . did you know there is NOT a constitutional right to be topless in public? I know. shocking.

FREE THE FACTS: THERE IS NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO BE TOPLESS IN PUBLIC

https://www.omag.org/news/2019/10/1...-constitutional-right-to-be-topless-in-public

excerpt:

There seems to be confusion about whether the 10th Circuit’s opinion in Free the Nipple-Fort Collins v. City of Fort Collins, 916 F.3d 792 (10th Cir. 2019) created a Constitutional right for women to be topless in public. Adding to this confusion was the response by Oklahoma’s Attorney General who stated that the opinion was “not binding” in Oklahoma. The purpose of this post is to clarify what the actual holding was in Free the Nipple, whether that holding is binding in Oklahoma and, finally, to address concerns about possible liability after Free the Nipple.

NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO BE TOPLESS IN PUBLIC
The Free the Nipple Plaintiffs tried to establish a Constitutional right for women to expose their breasts in public. They failed. Free the Nipple v. City of Fort Collins, 216 F.Supp.3d 1258 (D. Co. 2016). Plaintiff argued that being topless in public is a form of expression that is guaranteed and protected by the 1st Amendment. They lost on this argument because the exact argument has been considered and rejected by the United States Supreme Court on 2 prior occasions in Barnes v. Glen Theatre Inc., 501 U.S. 560 (1991) and City of Erie v. Pap’s A.M., 529 U.S. 277 (2000). Being topless in public is not inherently expressive activity. As such, laws prohibiting women from being topless in public do not violate the 1st Amendment.

There is no Constitutional right for women to be topless in public.

ALL BREASTS ARE CREATED EQUAL (AT LEAST IN THE 10TH CIRCUIT)
The Free the Nipple Plaintiffs also argued that the City’s topless ban violated the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment because it only applied to women. This was the claim that gained traction and resulted in a favorable ruling at the District Court. That was the ruling that the 10th Circuit was considering in the appeal.

Laws which treat men and women differently can be challenged under the Equal Protection clause. When the law creates a distinction based on gender, Courts will grant no deference to the judgment of the legislature as to whether a law was necessary or appropriate. Courts will require the government to defend its gender-specific law by proving 1) that the law was adopted to serve an important governmental interest and 2) that the means employed in the law were substantially related to serving that interest.

City argued that the female only topless ban served 3 important governmental interests: protecting children, promoting traffic safety, and maintain public order. City argued that the negative impact the public exposure of female breasts would have on each of those important interests justified a female-only topless ban. The core premise of City’s argument was that the negative impact is linked to the inherent physical, social and sexual differences between female and male breasts.

The 10th Circuit rejected this core premise. The Court recognized that there are differences between the breasts of men and women which are rooted in both societal norms and basic biology. To the Court, those societal and biological differences should not be codified in the law because the Court felt the distinction between the breasts of men and women is really rooted in generalizations about “the way women are”. Laws rooted in such generalizations create “a self-fulfilling cycle of discrimination” which perpetuate inequality between the genders. Essentially the Court held that the City’s ordinance was based on generalizations even though the City presented sociological and biological evidence.

Having rejected this core premise, the Court held that the City failed to prove that a female only topless ban substantially served the 3 governmental interests the City cited. The Court found that City presented no evidence that the public exposure of female breasts would actually negatively impact children, traffic or public order. City presented no evidence that the women of Fort Collins were actually preparing to take to the streets en masse and sans tops. To the Court, there was no evidence offered by the City as to why it needed to adopt this ordinance at this time.

There should have been ample evidence, the Court held, since Boulder and Denver had enacted laws which allowed for public displays of female breasts. Since 2 cities had recently enacted ordinances allowing women to be topless in public, there should have been actual evidence of the negative impact on children, traffic or public order from those cities. The lack of evidence of any harmful effects in those two communities was telling, at least to the Court.

Free the Nipple was about equality, not nudity. It did not establish a right for women to be topless in public. Rather, it was a statement from the Court that, when it came to breasts, the Court will not look kindly on laws that only apply to women. The outcome would likely have been much different had the City’s topless ban were gender neutral and/or if the City had produced more concrete evidence as to why they needed to ban topless women for the first time ever in 2015.
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more at the link

 

you sound smart but . . . I have my reservations