With the help of a leading First Amendment litigator, an upstate New York strip club is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether it's entitled to the same sales-tax exemptions granted to ballets and opera houses.

Albany-area strip club called Nite Moves is challenging the state's sales-tax policy on constitutional grounds. It's filed a petition with the Supreme Court seeking to overturn a ruling by the state's highest court last year.

The issue is whether the club's cover charge and three-minute lap dances should be subject to an 8% sales tax. The club argues that the same tax code that exempts "dramatic or musical art performances," should also apply to strip-club performances, accusing the state of acting as a dance critic.

State attorneys have argued that the nude dancers at Nite Moves aren't "engaged in a genuine choreographic dance performance." The New York Court of Appeals ruled against Nite Moves in a 4-to-3 decision in October.

Taking up the club's cause is Robert Corn-Revere, a veteran litigator from Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, a large Seattle-based law firm with a highly regarded First Amendment practice. Ronald G. London, of counsel to the firm, is also representing the club, as well as Andrew McCullough.