Public Nudity Not a First Amendment 'Right,' Says Attorney
by Ed Thomas
October 19, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A recent ruling in Florida that affirms the right of a citizen to make a political protest using nudity is being questioned. The city of Daytona Beach finds itself having to consider an appeal after the state's Seventh Judicial Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month upheld a lower-court decision that cleared charges of public nudity against Elizabeth Book for protesting topless on a city bridge in 2004. The city said Book violated a public nudity ordinance two years ago; but judges in the case so far have disagreed, saying it was a legitimate political protest and not public indecency, according to Associated Press. An attorney with a First Amendment, religious speech firm says that notion has no legal precedent.
Brian Fahling with the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy thinks the idea that an individual can disrobe publicly to exercise their First Amendment rights runs contrary to what the courts have ruled for two centuries.
"This court in Florida apparently discovered that somebody who does want to run around naked, I guess, in public and claim that they're protesting has a First Amendment right and/or even a right under the Florida Constitution [to do so]," Fahling observes. "And that, of course, runs contrary to what the teaching of the courts has been for 200 years."
According to the attorney, precedent states that communities "have a right to regulate the health, welfare, and morals in their communities" -- and the question of public indecency or public nudity, he adds, has always been something communities have dealt with by passing laws that prohibit it.
Fahling calls the First Amendment argument absurd, as well as unfortunate for the possible exposure of children to nudity in public. The city of Daytona Beach is considering an appeal to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The AFA attorney thinks the Judicial Circuit Court's decision will eventually be overturned.
Associated Press reports that Book was arrested again in July 2005 for disorderly conduct after she pulled down her top near a Daytona Beach auditorium in protesting against laws that forbid women from publicly going topless.
Ed Thomas, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
