The US Supreme Court on Monday denied to hear an appeal of three New Hampshire women challenging a law that led to their arrest for being nude in public, a report said.
The “Free the Nipple” activists are fighting a city of Laconia law that they say violates the constitution by treating men and women differently.
The Laconia law on indecent exposure bans sex and nudity in public, but singles out women by prohibiting the “showing of female breast with less than a fully opaque covering of any part of the nipple.”
In their petition to the Supreme Court, the trio said, “They were arrested and prosecuted as women for doing what any man may lawfully do,” according to The Hill.
“For being both topless and female in public, each was convicted of violating an ordinance criminalizing the public exposure of her ‘female breast.’ ”
The legal fight began in 2016, when Ginger Pierro was arrested at a Laconia beach for performing yoga while topless.
Two other women, Heidi Lilley and Kia Sinclair, were busted three days later while baring their chests at the same beach in protest of Pierro’s arrest.
The women challenged their convictions all the way to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, but were defeated at every level, leading them to go to the Supreme Court.
With Post wires