Full-moon Skinny Dip July 12
Open House July 13

BARE AND FREE

Volume 15

Number 5, July 2003

In This Issue

• Celebrate Nude Recreation Week with Us
• Florida Politician Attacks Family Naturism --a news analysis by Paul LeValley
• Announcements
  
• Upcoming Events
  

Celebrate Nude Recreation Week with Us

Full-moon Skinny Dip July 12 & Open House July 13

Originating in the 1970's as a grassroots celebration, Nude Recreation Week gives naturists everywhere a chance to not only bask in the life-affirming joys of naturism and nude recreation, but to share those joys with others. It gives the sponsoring organizations, The Naturist Society and the American Association for Nude Recreation, a chance to concentrate media attention on naturism and nude recreation.

Our celebration of National Nude Weekend begins this year with a Full-Moon Skinny-Dip on Saturday the 11th. Camping is an option all weekend.

Sunday's Open House is free, though contributions to the Legal Fund and/or the Land Fund would be appreciated. Dress code for the day is:

10-11 Clothed

11-1 Clothing optional

1-4 Nude

The public has been invited. This would be a good time to invite friends who might want to ease into things gradually.

There will also be a board meeting at some point in the afternoon.

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Florida Politician Attacks Family Naturism

--a news analysis by Paul LeValley

It seemed like a good idea at the time.  To emphasize the family-oriented nature of its clubs, the American Association for Nude Recreation invited reporters from The New York Times and Time magazine to attend this summer's JFANR camp.  Actually it is three camps:  the JFANR camp for kids 11-14, Leadership Academy for high school students 15-18, and Nude U for college students 18-23.  The New York Times article turned out great: good publicity, good journalism.

Enter one Mark Foley, little-known Republican member of the U.S. House who wants Senator Bob Graham's seat if Graham runs for president.  Foley has positioned himself as a champion of children, and recently pushed to get fast notification of missing children.  Still, Foley's religious right supporters are shopping around for another candidate because he has not been able to answer reporters' questions about whether he is gay.  He needed to change the subject fast.

Foley announced to the press that he was writing Governor Jeb Bush and the state Attorney General to inquire whether the camp was breaking any law, and if not, to introduce a new law they would be breaking.  He accused the camp of exploiting children to make money--not realizing that the camp has lost money year after year.  He had simply taken a free ride on the AANR publicity budget.  When the Time article came out a few days later, Foley was half of the story.  You could call it balanced reporting.

Then sensationalism hit.  America On Line in its daily poll asked people if they wish they could have attended such a camp.  Half a million people voted that day, and a surprising 34% said yes.  45% said they wish they could attend a nudist resort now, or already have.  These numbers are higher than in any previous poll.  But things turned ugly in various AOL discussion groups--especially the one on parenting.  Anyone with facts got shouted down.  Pornographers jumped into the fray, trying to peddle their junk.  The planned publicity had spun out of control.

Until that point, the reporters had gotten it right: the camp was a national story about family naturism; Foley was a state story about opportunism.  Then several television stations around the country reported a badly research wire service blurb about nudity at some camp in Florida--no mention that it was at a nudist resort, no mention of AANR.  Because the story was unrecognizable, it did no real harm.

The New York Times story had come out on Wednesday, June 18.  Foley made his publicity bid on Thursday.  The story spun out of control as a one-day sensation on Friday.  That might have been the end of it, had the Time article not given the controversy national publicity on Monday.  If a lesson is to be learned from all of this, perhaps it is to invite only one reporter at a time.  Tuesday, AANR officials hit the national television morning talk shows, doing damage control.

Foley also got in front of a television camera on Fox network's The O'Reiley Factor.  He no longer focused just on the camp, but wanted to ban everyone under 18 from all nudist parks, resorts, and beaches.  In short, he wants to outlaw family naturism.  In his talk, he assumed that (1) any two nude teens are engaged in pre-marital sex, (2) nudist resorts are crawling with dangerous sexual predators, and (3) children of all ages are too young and impressionable to make decisions about taking off their clothes for a skinny-dip.  Foley keeps using the phrase, "loophole in Florida law," as though any other state interferes in family lifestyle.

Governor Jeb Bush has refused to get involved in Foley's election bid.  The governor's office wrote Foley that if he had any evidence of illegal activity, he should report it to the police, effectively telling him to put up or shut up. The governor's legal counsel added, "The rights of parents to impart their values to their children and raise their children as they see fit are sacred."

While AANR worried about bad publicity, the Naturist Action Committee of The Naturist Society moved swiftly on the political front.  South Florida Free Beaches immediately requested a meeting with Foley to set him straight on the facts.  As a subtle reminder a few days later, South Florida Free Beaches used the Freedom of Information Act to request the factual basis for the suppositions Foley had been spreading.  He finally agreed to meet with Florida naturist leaders on July 7.

It took more than a week for both national organizations to issue public statements.  AANR addressed their members, defending their overall publicity record.  TNS addressed the public, pointing out the error of identifying nudity with sex.  The TNS statement also called on Foley to reveal any factual sources behind his accusations.

Longtime nudity foes smell blood, so it has become open season on nudists.  A television announcer in Orlando has taken it on himself to send the AANR promotional video, “Welcome to Our World” to the FBI to investigate for child pornography.  The video has been shown to countless politicians and chambers of Commerce over the last 16 years.

Congressman Foley has set up a web site, http://www.votervoice.net/groups/foley where, with a single click, citizens can bombard the governor, attorney general, and Republican leaders of the Florida House and Senate with identical messages.  Naturists quickly figured out they could erase his subject line and message, and substitute their own.  South Florida Free Beaches has established a similar, but more cumbersome, web site, http://www.sffb.com/lawthreats.html.  People who want to nip this thing in the bud before any sweeping new law is proposed would do well to utilize one of these services.  Our club's political committee is contacting our local legislators.

Stay tuned for further developments.

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Announcements

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2003 Calendar of Up Coming Events

Check calendar updates on our web page: http://www.tallanaturally.org

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