Posted on 09/11/2017 3:03:50 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
A group of bikini baristas filed a lawsuit Monday against the city of Everett, alleging that two recently passed ordinances banning bikinis and bare skin — including bare shoulders, bare midriffs and bare buttocks — on restaurant employees, violate their constitutional rights to free expression and the right to privacy.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, claims that the ordinances, which were passed unanimously by the City Council last month, deny bikini-stand employees the ability to communicate and express themselves through their choice of swimwear, infringe on their right to privacy and deny them due process.
“This is not about the bikini,” said attorney Schuyler Lifschultz, “It’s about women’s rights and the U.S. Constitution. The City of Everett violated these women’s rights across the board.”
The suit asks the federal court to declare unconstitutional the ordinances which went into effect on Sept. 5.
Barista Natalie Bjerk says, “This is about women’s rights. The city council should not tell me what I can and cannot wear when I go to work, it’s a violation of my First Amendment rights.”
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
I would never want to deny her the ability to express herself like that.
In Houston the lesbian mayor outlawed bare nipples and imposed a rape tax on the admission fee.
I seem to recall hearing that at least at one time Seattle or Portland had banned topless nudity in clubs.
Meanwhile the homosexuals have sex in the streets/bars and parade naked during their Gay Pride Marches.
http://www.thestranger.com/slog/2016/09/27/24582429/seattle-narrowly-escapes-the-trauma-of-seeing-womens-nipples-in-publicly-displayed-art
by Jen Graves • Sep 27, 2016 at 9:18 am
“I’ve worked at the Can Can for a really long time,” Amiri told me yesterday, referring to the burlesque club across the street from Deja Vu where she bartends and waits tables, and where the stupidly, harshly, and dangerously restrictive Washington state laws that apply to other strip clubs don’t apply, because the dancers wear teeny-tiny coverings on certain parts of their bodies.
“The girls all wear pasties,” she continued. “Just by the fact that they’re wearing this tiny little glittery thing on their nipples means people can drink, means they can get in people’s laps—just because their nipple is colored a different color than it is naturally. Somehow that is the insane loophole that makes it more decent. What those dancers do every day to help normalize bodies is super cool. I thought it was cool taking off my shirt [to model for the mural] in solidarity with the club right across the street. I’m not too surprised about this, it’s just really painfully boring and disappointing.”
-PJ
So are we bringing back the local censor boards for films in each city? Baltimore had theirs well into the 80s.
Those are some fine lookin’ ladies.
I’ll support her lefts.
As long as they wear hair nets, who cares?
Liberals telling women what they can or can’t do with their bodies is okay then?
some opinion son this board certainly show why America is on the down slope....
I stand behind these women’s right to express themselves through the use of bikini swim wear. But like all rights there has to be reasonable limits in place so as to prevent abuse. And that is why I propose that there must be a hotness test in place that an applicant must pass in order to be issued a bikini license that authorizes them to don a bikini in public. It’s for public safety after all.
They sure do.
In fact, regardless what FDR’s state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices wanted everybody to think about "atheist" Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation,” the real Jefferson had indicated the following.
The states had reserved uniquely to themselves the specific power to regulate our 1st Amendment (1A) constitutional rights for example, regardless that they had made 1A to prohibit such powers to the feds.
”3. Resolved that it is true as a general principle and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the constitution that -the powers not delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people-: and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, & were reserved, to the states or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated rather than the use be destroyed [emphasis added]; . . . “ - Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798 .
So even if the states had expressly included the so-called right to absolute privacy in the Bill of Rights (BoR), the states didn’t obligate themselves to respect such rights. The states obligated only the feds to respect such rights.
It wasn’t until the states ratified the 14th Amendment (14A) that they obligated themselves to respect rights not only expressly protected by the BoR, but right expressly protected in other parts of the Constitution as well.
In fact, the congressional record shows that John Bingham, the main author of Section 1 of 14A, had officially clarified that the amendment took away no state rights.
"The adoption of the proposed amendment will take from the States no rights [emphasis added] that belong to the States." - John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe. (See bottom half of first column)
"No right [emphasis added] reserved by the Constitution to the States should be impaired . . ." —John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe. (See top half of 1st column)
"Do gentlemen say that by so legislating we would strike down the rights of the State? God forbid. [emphasis added] I believe our dual system of government essential to our national existence." - John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe. (See bottom half of third column)
So the states still had the power to regulate our basic constitutional rights after 14A was ratified, powers that Jefferson had clarified that they had, such powers now reasonably limited by 14A.
In fact, Justice Reed had noted that it was the job of judges to balance 10A-protected state powers with 14A-protected rights.
"Conflicts in the exercise of rights arise and the conflicting forces seek adjustments in the courts, as do these parties, claiming on the one side the freedom of religion, speech and the press, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, and on the other the right to employ the sovereign power explicitly reserved to the State by the Tenth Amendment to ensure orderly living without which constitutional guarantees of civil liberties would be a mockery." —Justice Reed, Jones v. City of Opelika, 1942.
Also, regardless that some people claim that 14A added new rights to the Constitution, the Supreme Court has clarified that it did not.
“3. The right of suffrage was not necessarily one of the privileges or immunities of citizenship before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that amendment does not add to these privileges and immunities. It simply furnishes additional guaranty for the protection of such as the citizen already had. [emphasis added]” —Minor v. Happersett, 1874.
It remains that cities and states have the power to establish dress codes for example, depending on what a state's voters want, not depending on politically correct interpretations of express constitutional rights.
She’s absolutely free to express herself as she chooses...
Until she takes a paycheck, at which time she is engaging in and affecting commerce...
And according to SCOTUS can now be regulated, period.
Case closed.
HEAR HEAR!!! SEE SEE!!!
LOL, that explains the lack of male customers.
Am I the only one who sees the irony in asserting the right to privacy in the display of public nudity (or near-nudity)?
A lovely Gal selling coffee
in a Bikini Top...
Sheesh ...
It bothers you...change the “Channel”
Non sequitor. Understanding that the first amendment correctly does not make one an advocate of any kind of censorship which it does not apply to. And misunderstanding it is not a virtue.
lol, having been to India several times, and being married to a South Indian... that is SOOOOOO true....
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