Summary: A woman was honoring “Go Topless Day” by baring her breasts in Chicago, but received a ticket for violating the city’s decency ordinance.
A U.S. District Judge tossed out a lawsuit filed by a woman that was ticketed for being topless on North Avenue Beach. Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman dismissed Sonoko Tagami’s argument that police had infringed on her rights to equal protection and free expression.
Coleman was urged by city lawyers to dismiss her claims that Chicago’s public decency ordinance violates the First and Fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution after she exposed her breasts on “Go Topless Day.” She tried to argue that since men can bare their breasts in public but woman can’t that she is being treated unequally.
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On August 24, 2014, Tagami received a ticket from a Chicago police officer to pay $100 plus $50 for costs incurred for an administrative law hearing. She had asked Coleman to dismiss the fine but she declined. Tagami claimed she was wearing opaque body paint on the day she was protesting at the downtown beach. A YouTube video shows her topless with a skirt on speaking with two female officers.
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“Go Topless Day” was organized by the UFO religion, the Raelian movement, formed in the 70’s by a French former journalist and race car driver. The movement states, “women are commonly arrested, fined and humiliated for daring to go topless in public, a freedom men have had for decades.”
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Women are allowed to breastfeed in public in Chicago but anyone whose “genitals…or any portion of the breast at or below the upper edge of the areola thereof any female person, is exposed to public view or is not covered by an opaque covering” could face a $500 fine.
Source: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/02/03/judge-dismisses-go-topless-lawsuit/
Photo: inquisitr.com