Group: Topless taboo is sexist

City says shirtless protest can skirt ordinances

Tom Sharpe | The New Mexican

8/22/2008 - 8/23/08

An organization that believes in extraterrestrials and claims to have cloned the world's first human wants women to bare their breasts in public today.

They'll get no legal arguments from the city of Santa Fe.

The Raelian Movement was founded by a sports-car journalist named Claude Vorihon who claims to have been visited by space aliens near Clermont-Ferrand, France, in 1973.

Vorihon, who subsequently changed his name to Rael, said the aliens — 3-feet tall with pale-green skin, almond-shaped eyes and long, dark hair — explained to him how they created humans in a laboratory 25,000 years ago.

The Raelian Movement, which claims 40,000 members in several countries, promotes "scientific creationism," human rights and guilt-free sexual experimentation. In 2003, Raelians claimed to have cloned the first human baby.

The Raelians' latest crusade is aimed at what they maintain is the hypocrisy of allowing men to go topless while banning the same behavior in women.

According to Web sites rael.org, raelianews.org and gotopless.org, protests are planned today in 11 American cities, including Santa Fe's small Macaione Park, located on the northeastern edge of the downtown at Paseo de Peralta and Marcy Street, from 1 to 2 p.m., and one Tuesday at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

City Attorney Frank Katz said he got a call this week from a local organizer, asking about Santa Fe's city ordinances on women going topless. "They are concerned ... that men can go topless and show off our impressive pecs, but women cannot," he said. "Be that as it may, some of us might notice that there's a difference between men and women."

Katz said he found three city ordinances dealing with the subject, but none seems to apply to today's protest. One bans topless waitresses and dancers in places that serve alcohol. Another on indecent exposure defines that "as stuff south of the waistline," Katz said.

Yet another on disorderly conduct bans toplessness, but only if it disturbs the peace. "I can certainly imagine a woman who is topless who is behaving in an indecent way, a sexually provocative way ... to provoke people to disturb the peace," Katz said. "I think that is against the law. But I think simply taking off their shirt is not."

In December 2005, anti-fur protesters from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals threatened to get naked in the Santa Fe Plaza, but after the city police threatened arrests, the women settled for wearing only panties and body paint during their chilly demonstration.

Katz said he has advised the Santa Fe police not to interfere with today's Raelian protest if women simply go topless and do not engage in full nudity in public.

"I don't know what they're seeking to provoke," he said, "but hopefully, if they just take off their shirts, God bless them."

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.