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AUG 23rd, National Topless Protest Day

Raelian Movement declares Aug. 23 ‘National Topless Protest Day’

LAS VEGAS, May 27 – U.S.-based organization www.GoTopless.org claims that women have the same constitutional right as men to go bare-chested in public. What’s more, the group is encouraging women nationwide to rally bare-chested in public on Aug. 23, the date selected for the organization’s “National Protest Day.”

“As long as men can go topless, women should have a same and equal right,” said Rael, spiritual leader of the International Raelian Movement and founder of GoTopless.org. “Otherwise, men should also be forced to wear something that hides their chests.”

Raelians consider a National Protest Day necessary because women who go topless in U.S. public places are currently arrested, fined, humiliated and treated as criminals.

“Women should go topless and rally publicly in great numbers on August 23 to protest that despicable treatment and exercise their rights,” said San Diego resident Nadine Gary, a Raelian guide and one of the event’s principal organizers. “We encourage all women’s groups and individuals to join us at these rallies. Together, with peaceful femininity but unshakable determination, we’ll protest this gross inequality in the law. We’ll demand that our right to go topless be recognized in accordance with the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and that all state laws be amended to reflect that right.”

She said the Aug. 23 rallies will be held in a number of U.S. cities, including Washington, Los Angeles, Miami and New York, adding that the New York City rally will be important even though it has been legal for women to go topless in public in New York since 1992.

“It will remind the women there to feel free and naturally exercise this fundamental right just as NY men do. This fundamental freedom permitted by the laws of their state that is still widely ignored by many,” Gary said. “One way to update the public is to be part of National Protest Day.”

Why August 23?

“Back in 1970, Congress designated August 26 as Women’s Equality Day to remind people of women’s continuing efforts for equality,” Gary explained, adding that the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (giving women the right to vote) was finally ratified, after 72 years of effort, on August 26, 1920. “We wanted to honor the Aug. 26 date, but we moved it up three days to a Saturday so more women could take part in the rallies,” Gary said.

She is convinced that it will take much less time for women to achieve the right to go topless – provided enough of them take part in the rallies, thus bringing the issue to the forefront of public discussion.

“The 21st century is high time for women to be granted the right to go topless in public, a right American men have been able to enjoy for almost a century in all 50 U.S. states,” Gary declared. “To deny American women the right to go topless is not only ridiculous but unconstitutional.”

For more information about National Protest Day, visit www.GoTopless.org