Court Opinion

ID: 9769812
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:02:36.108844+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:08.306674
License: Public Domain

DAUPHINOT, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur with Justice Livingston’s concurring and dissenting opinion. I write only to clarify what I see as the effect of the majority opinion.
By holding “But we do not believe that justice or equality is served by application of TERA to an ordinance limiting the locations where female topless dancing is permitted,” the court opts for selective application of amendments to our State Constitution. History has shown selective application of our Constitutions to be a dangerous practice.1
It should also be remembered that this case does not call for a judicial referendum on TERA. The voters have spoken on this issue and it is not our place to express our opinion. The question is whether the ordinance unlawfully discriminates against women. It is not whether this court can find some way to justify the discrimination.
The compelling governmental interest upon which this case is based is limiting the negative secondary effects of sexually oriented businesses. By its selective application of TERA, the majority finds that a woman who works topless and in blue jeans is engaging in a sexually oriented business, but a bare-breasted man who dances seductively in a revealing but buttocks-covering bathing suit is not. Indeed, a woman wearing an opaque blouse covering her breasts but exposing a cleavage is nude under the ordinance even though no portion of the nipple is exposed.
*939The result of the definition of nudity based solely on gender is that, while women in low cut tops may not work within 1,000 feet of a church or daycare center, an establishment employing only topless male dancers may operate next door to a church or daycare facility.
I believe the government’s interest in limiting secondary effects of sexually oriented businesses, not to mention justice, equality, and the Texas Constitution, would best be served bya gender-neutral definition of nudity, as mandated by TERA,

. See generally Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (1944) (a comprehensive preBrown v. Board of Education study of the African-American, including an account of Jim Crow laws and their effects on U.S. society, sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York).