The breasts of the West pass a pair of legal tests

It's been a banner week for nudity in California. First the naked sunbathers at San Onofre got permission to keep their most private parts public, now a pair of women arrested in Sacramento in 2005 for baring their breasts in the name of peace have won a legal victory of their own.

According to a Superior Court judge in Sacramento, the arrest of "Breasts Not Bombs" protesters Sherry Glaser and Sheba Love was unlawful because their action was symbolic speech and the women were not, as accused, indecently exposed or committing a lewd act.

Our own Evan Halper covered the lead-up to the protest, in which officials warned that the sight of the women's bare bosoms could, as Evan put it, "corrupt children, prompt drivers to veer off the road and cause sex offenders to run amok." He was also there on Nov. 7, when the women shed their shirts and police arrested them. The women faced the possibility of a trial, and of having to register as sex offenders.

In case you're a bit hazy about the whole breasts-to-bombs connection, the women say breasts represent peace and the survival of the human race while bombs, well, don't. The group has protested in San Francisco without incident (natch) and in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., where neither the women nor the men in the group were told to put on shirts.

If you're made of sterner stuff, this site has not only photos of the bare-breasted women protesting in Berkeley in July of 2005, but some men who dropped by and, in the spirit of things, dropped trou for peace.

America. What a country.

-- Veronique de Turenne

Photo: Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times

(A previous version of this post misidentified Sheba Love as Shoba Love.)