The right to bare arms and . . .

Our local naked teens have made the news as Iain exercises his Vermont-given right to bare arms and bottoms:

By Regina Haggo
The Hamilton Spectator

(Sep 2, 2006)
Vermont was the first American territory to abolish slavery. It did so in 1777, when it became a republic. Freedom is the first word in Vermont's state motto, Freedom and Unity, and Vermonters take it seriously.

Maybe that's why public nudity is legal in Vermont, and not, for instance, in neighbouring Massachusetts. Or maybe no one thought to doff their clothes in public.

That's what a couple of dozen teenagers have been doing this summer in downtown Brattleboro, a town of about 20,000 on the Connecticut River.

"We just thought it would be a little fun," Charles Corry, 19, told The Boston Globe. He's one of the young people of both sexes who have been hanging out in the Harmony Parking Lot.

Hannah Phillips, 15, has not disrobed but she defended others' right to do so. "People have a basic human right to be naked if they want to."

Others disagree. And at least one woman has complained to the town council, which will discuss the possibility of legislation this month.