Thursday, the Montgomery based Foundation for Moral Law filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court in support of a Laconia, New Hampshire, anti-nudity ordinance.
In the case of Lilley v. New Hampshire, Lilley and two other petitioners had been convicted of public nudity and challenged the constitutionality of the Laconia ordinance, arguing that it violated the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech and the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection because the ordinance’s definition of nudity included toplessness for women, but not for men.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court rejected their appeal, and they petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for review. The Foundation’s amicus brief opposes their petition.
The President of the Foundation for Moral Law is Kayla Moore.
“When the Framers of the Bill of Rights included protection of free speech, they certainly did not consider nudity to be a form of speech,” Pres. Kayla Moore stated. “As in so many areas like abortion and same-sex marriage, advocates of the ‘Living Constitution’ are trying to read into the Constitution ‘rights’ which simply aren’t there and which the Framers would have thought abhorrent.”
Foundation Senior Counsel John Eidsmoe added, “By the petitioners’ reasoning, all anyone has to do to escape prosecution for nudity is to say, ‘I’m protesting clothing.’ And the Laconia ordinance defines nudity differently for men and women for a very obvious reason — men and women are different. The New Hampshire decision rests on solid legal ground, and we hope the U.S. Supreme Court will not disturb it.”
The Foundation for Moral Law was founded by former Chief Justice Roy Moore (R). Kayla Moore is the wife of Judge Roy Moore. Roy Moore is a candidate for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Doug Jones (D).
The Foundation for Moral Law is an Alabama-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the defense of traditional family values and the strict interpretation of the Constitution according to the intent of its Framers.
