SACRAMENTO — As a Ventura County public defender, Liana Johnsson has handled many life-changing cases, but her biggest public crusade these days has been going topless.
For months, Johnsson has been fighting to allow topless women at California beaches and parks, and now the issue has made its way to the Capitol.
A group of lawyers, at Johnsson's request, has asked the Legislature to make topless sunbathing legal, saying the ban is the last criminal sanction that treats women differently than men.
The new movement has urgency: Because of a December court ruling, Johnsson and other attorneys contend, women convicted of indecent exposure could find themselves listed as sex offenders under Megan's Law, alongside rapists and child molesters.
"At some point, men's breasts became liberated and women's didn't," Johnsson said Friday. "This is the only thing left that men are legally allowed to do and, for women, they have to register as a sex offender. The real issue is there should be equal protection under the law."
The office of state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer said women should not be concerned about being identified as sex offenders, given that California law considers topless sunbathing to be indecent but not lewd. Lawmakers may soon be tackling the issue to remove any chance of misinterpretation by local prosecutors.
Before her idea reached Sacramento this week, Johnsson presented her arguments to more than 400 delegates at an October bar association convention. She flashed images on a screen of the big-breasted male evildoer from "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me," as she spoke.
Johnsson -- who wears a pink badge that reads, "I support breast equality" -- also has produced a two-minute video featuring obese men with large breasts lounging on California beaches, proof, she said, that the law is not applied equally to men and women, as required by the U.S. Constitution.
After a bit of tittering followed by a plea to protect children, the lawyers' group approved a resolution asking that the criminal codes forbidding topless sunbathing be removed. Lobbyists for the Conference of Delegates of California Bar Associations said they expect a lawmaker next week to introduce the bill Johnsson seeks, although an author and details of the proposal have not been decided.
