Will the Supreme Court take up the issue? Might they be amused enough that people will spend gobs of money on this? I have my doubts, because it really seems more of something that is a 10th Amendment issue, not a federal constitution issue
Could Ocean City’s topless ordinance head to the Supreme Court? The latest legal battle
The constitutionality of Ocean City’s law banning women — and not men — from sunbathing topless could potentially go before the U.S. Supreme Court after the attorneys representing five women in the case petitioned the nation’s highest court earlier this month.
The petitioners are asking the Supreme Court to review the Aug. 4 federal appeals court ruling, which determined that Ocean City’s law is constitutional.
This petition was filed Dec. 1, and the court has until Jan. 7 to respond, according to the U.S. Supreme Court docket.
While the Supreme Court hears only a small percentage of cases petitioned, this move continues a new chapter in the ongoing debate over what is protecting “moral sensibility” or violating gender equality in Maryland’s largest beach town.
In 2017, Ocean City passed a law banning only women from exposing their breasts in public. It came after one of the plaintiffs in the case, Chelsea Eline, contacted Ocean City police and said it was her right to go topless.
Eline and four other women then filed a lawsuit against the town in 2018, claiming that the ordinance violated their constitutional rights.
A federal judge first ruled in April 2020 that the town’s ordinance was legal and did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, as the plaintiffs argued.
It doesn’t seem to violate, more importantly, the Maryland Constitution, because the federal Constitution really doesn’t say much of anything about not being able to pass any laws that keep people from walking around on the beech with the boobs hanging out. What’s next, showing full nudity? Walking around the streets with boobs hanging out? There’s always been morality laws and rules in society, some which are wrong, some which are just simple propriety.
After losing in federal court, which, really, should have never heard the case, referring it back to state court, they lost at the federal court of appeals
In this decision, Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. wrote that Ocean City’s elected leaders are within their rights to enact laws that protect public sensibilities.
“The judicial legacy of justifying laws on the basis of the perceived moral sensibilities of the public is far from spotless. Some government action that we now rightly view as unconstitutional, if not immoral, has been justified on that basis,” Quattlebaum wrote. “Even so, in this situation, protecting public sensibilities serves an important basis for government action.”
Some people just have this sense of Moral Outrage that they aren’t allowed to do everything they want in public, and want to force everyone to comply with their demands. And, no, restricting women to keeping their boobs covered at the beach is not the same as making them wear a full body covering nor telling blacks they can’t ride at the front of the bus. But, they’re still petitioning the Supreme Court
This latest move asks the court to declare that Ocean City’s ordinance violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution “because the discriminatory gender classification contained in the ordinance does not further an important governmental interest, and is not narrowly tailored to achieve its objective.”
It’s a pretty big stretch. But, amusing.
The equitable solution is to force men to cover up!
So women’s lovely breasts offend the sensibilities of some. Open carry of AR-15s and Glocks offend the sensibilities of others. Boobs don’t kill people, bullets kill people!
And therein lies the root of your cognitive dissonance. People kill people. Neither the AR-15’s (which is the favorite go to gun for leftists even though few murders are committed with them) nor bullets jump up and murder people. But maybe SUV’s do. At least according to some leftists when those SUV’s are used by black supremacists to mow down white people.
What is the basis for leftists to overtly despise any form of modesty, morality or moderation especially in public? Is it your innate hate of God or your unwillingness to set a code of conduct for people unless it involves forcing them to get medical injections against their will? Why is modesty a sin in leftist-land? What if a parent does not want a woman’s tits in their kids face? Is that some sort of unreasonable earth shattering request?
Some men probably do need to cover up at the beach, not wear speedos with big bellies and such!
I don’t take my gun to the beach. Most don’t. It’s an interesting flex, Elwood, but, has nothing to do with propriety.
Why stop at the beach? I think it should be illegal to sell yoga pants to any woman over 135 pounds. Severe penalties. This really needs to stop. A higher priority than topless beachgoers.
If you don’t take your weapon to the beach, you’re obviously not an Israeli soldier!
C’mon folks, this topic should generate more discussion.
Personally, I think what a person wears or not is their problem, not mine. I don’t have to look [in reality, often you don’t want to look]. And, LGB, usually one of the first things a child sees in life is a tit and they are usually quite pleased to see one [don’t get me started on nursing]. I carry my AR openly, when I carry one, ’cause it won’t fit under my jacket like a decent pistol and I don’t usually carry at the beach [salt air is not good for my pistols]. Neither do I wear a Speedo at the beach, I’m over 70 and a tad heavy, my choice, but it is legal. But, since we are headed for the condo in Daytona in a couple of weeks and even in January, I’m sure there’ll be a few minimalist suits on the beach.
Bottom line, IMHO let’s not try to legislate morals at this level if we are being so accepting of everything else ‘immoral’ that is currently being accepted.
For centuries people covered themselves to avoid sunburn to live in hot sunny climates. Now, in temperate climates, females wish to uncover their tops? What do they gain, besides the stares of appreciative
males (and some women) and skin damage? It makes sense. There are nudist camps for that, remember?
Our esteemed host wrote:
The Supremes managed to find a constitutional right for homosexual conduct, which had been banned by human morality for as long as we have any knowledge about human morality; it does not seem that past morality means much to the law.
The obvious question becomes: who is harmed by women going topless, or even complete nudity? If our rights to swing our fists end at the tip of the next person’s nose, it is because hitting that second person harms him. A person’s right to go nude might seem to end at the next person’s eyeballs, but what, exactly, is the demonstrable harm done to that second person? There is no right not to be offended.
It seems unrelated but I stridently oppose graffiti in public places. If I want to see art,I can go to a museum. People slathering paint in a public space places it where I am compelled to look at it while I’m trying to go about my business. People being allowed to wander around half naked, or fully naked places me in the same circumstance. And by the way, a vast majority of the women who want to display themselves in this manner most real men don’t want to see.
Graffiti can be defined as defacing someone else’s property, an injury that costs the property owner money to remove. The property owner would have a case concerning damages, but an individual has no more complaint about seeing graffiti than he would about hearing a street preacher or odious BLM screecher he didn’t like.
Simple solution to those who want to go topless – just tell authorities that you ‘identify’ as a MAN – there problem solved.
As for people who oppose, just perform a 1st amendment audit – video record them! I am certain those who want to go around topless, have NO ISSUE with being recorded! No privacy in public.
It really comes down to your definition of propriety and morality.
In some countries, females have to cover their hair and most of their bodies.
Currently, female breasts are taboo in most of North America. Why?
The bikinis of today would have caused outrage a few decades ago…
If the majority decide that seeing breasts is acceptable, does that make the women who show them immoral?
I’m not religious, so where in the bible does it say that women have to cover their breasts?
… and even if it _does_ say that, is it relevant?
I would say that America has a problem with public nudity and should deal with it…