Equal protection under the law
Protest To Aim At Equal Topless Rights
POSTED: 9:03 AM EST March 2, 2004
UPDATED: 4:27 PM EST March 2, 2004
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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Liz Book believes exposed breasts are a part of motorcycle culture, so the Volusia County mother plans to lead a protest of topless women on the last day of Bike Week.
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Support Equal Topless Rights For Men And Women? Do you support equal topless rights, allowing women to show their breasts openly, just like men? Thank you for voicing your opinion in our online survey! Yes No Not sure Book hopes to lead 1,000 "top-free" women and men along a half-mile of Main Street at noon Sunday.
"I never want to see another girl handcuffed and crying in the street because she yanked her top," said Book, 42. "Exposed breasts have been a part of the biker lifestyle for more than 50 years."
City officials and police are taking a wait-and-see approach, in part because the city's ordinance allows nudity when it is part of a political protest.
"It all depends on their behavior," said Al Tolley, Daytona Beach police spokesman. "The complexion of any protest can change, and it can turn into a lewd act in a heartbeat."
Kevin Kilian, a vice president of The Chamber-Daytona Beach and Halifax Area, said his group also is opposed to Book's planned protest.
"We as a community make a lot of concessions for our visitors," Kilian said. "It shouldn't be too much to ask that they respect the laws while they're here."
The city's nudity ordinance resulted in fines of $253 each for 59 women who exposed their breasts during last year's Bike Week, which attracts tens of thousands of bikers each year from around the nation, according to police records.
Book herself was arrested in 1998 when she bared her breasts inside the Full Moon Saloon bar.
Women recently have won the right to go top-free in parts of Maine, Vermont and in several provinces of Canada, said Morley Schloss, a retired school administrator who helped decriminalize women's bare breasts in New York in the late 1980s.
A group of women in Brevard County, known as the "Topfree 10," have filed a federal lawsuit seeking the right to go shirtless in nonsexual contexts wherever men do.
"We're fighting for our rights to do what men do," said Lori Mauldin, a sales clerk at a Daytona Beach T-shirt shop who intends to march in the protest. "If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me."
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