Badpuppy Gay Today

Friday, 21 March, 1997

Playalinda Beach, the uncut pearl of Central Florida, has enjoyed a time-honored reputation as an energy spot for avid Naturists: those families, individuals, and picnic-goers who, wholly bathed in sunlight, feel that nudity stands next to honesty. Just north of Cape Kennedy Space Center, Playalinda is a long, sandy strip stretching to a 13th parking area at its far end. Naturists park in this last lot and walk approximately two miles farther--away from others-- before settling into beachside camps. There they enjoy volley ball games, swimming, and the sheer ecstasy of meeting nature head-on upon one of the most impressively beautiful beaches on America's East Coast.

The Christian Right has tirelessly busied itself interfering, sending its morality troops to do battle with these harmless Naturists who seem all too oblivious to whatever moral threats the Christian Right perceives nude bodies to represent. Its attempts at legislating against nudism surfaced first at meetings in Titusville, a town over ten miles distant. Titusville's city administrators passed laws against the nudist "threat" to Titusville-style morality. Naturists, represented ably by activists from the East Central Florida Naturists Society, won this legal round, however, because no nearby town can have jurisdiction over Playalinda.

Next, the fundamentalists and evangelicals united to push through a county law banning nudity, one which also took into account the sizes of women's bathing suits. Neither would men, said this particular law, be allowed to walk about with their private parts, under their suits, in turgid states.Sheriff Jake Miller, the previous Brevard County Sheriff, had distinguished himself before his November electoral defeat by arresting nudists on a number of occasions. At one stage of this struggle of his police-against-people-without-clothes, he sent camera crews to take photos of the nudists, hoping to intimidate them. Some taxpayers balked at paying public servants for nude-photo-shoot duty. On another occasion an entire court-room filled with nudists was sent home, no legal action having been taken against them.

Now, however, a newly elected Sheriff, Phil Williams, says he will enforce the nudity ban to the letter of the law, no matter, he says, "how much sand officers might get in their shoes." Such duty requires officers to seek nudes along the beach, passing out $250 fines. Procedural challenges to the county anti-nudity ordinance have come, therefore, into play.

ACLU board member, Marc Tietig, says "I don't know if this new sheriff is a prude or not. I think he's much better educated than the last sheriff." Still, Tietig told GayToday, the new sheriff may have thought he could get publicity out of 27 nudists' citations.

Tietig, who addressed the last meeting of the East Central Florida Naturists Society, characterizes that group as "highly charged," as well as "vocal, focused, and active."