San Francisco folks may soon no longer 'let it all hang out'

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
11/21/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Local government moves to ban public nudity, shedding one of last remnants of hippie past

Public nudity has long been an unexpected surprise for many tourists to San Francisco. A part of its hippie, free-wheeling past, and people could encounter men and women walking around in the altogether as if the city was one gigantic nudist colony. This writer remembers the time he saw a group of 100 bicyclists, all naked, coming out of a nearby park. The event marked a protest of the city's bicycle helmet laws. Such sights will become rarer there, as city officials in the Baghdad by the Bay are moving to put the kibosh on public nudity.

Gypsy Taub, a nudist activist who had organized protests-in-the-buff and marches in the weeks leading up to the ruling, doffed her duds before sheriff's deputies escorted her from the room.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The San Francisco Board of Supervisors in a narrow vote of six to five have voted in favor of an ordinance that prohibits exposed genitals in most public places. This includes all streets, sidewalks, busses and subways.

There are exemptions. Public nudity will still be permitted at street fairs and parades, such as the city's annual gay pride event. Another local tradition, the Bay-to-Breakers street run also draws contestants in various states of un-dress.

Pun not intended -- Supervisor Scott Wiener - had introduced the ban in response to continued complaints about men whose public nudity is on constant public display in the city's predominantly gay Castro District. Weiner said he finally felt compelled to act.

"It's no longer an occasionally and quirky part of San Francisco. Rather, in the Castro, it's pretty much seven days a week," Wiener said. "It's very much a, `Hey, look what I have' mentality," Wiener says.

Supervisor John Avalos voiced a dissenting opinion. "We are a beacon of light to other parts of the country, and sometimes there is a little bit of weirdness about how we express ourselves," Avalos said.

Wiener's decision was highly unpopular with some parts of the San Francisco community. Gypsy Taub, a nudist activist who had organized protests-in-the-buff and marches in the weeks leading up to the ruling, doffed her duds before sheriff's deputies escorted her from the room.

A first offense for wearing nothing but the wind will carry a maximum penalty of a $100 fine. Prosecutors would have authority to charge a third violation as a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $500 fine and a year in jail. The law still must pass a final vote with Mayor Edwin Lee's signature to go into effect early next year.

A federal lawsuit seeking to block the ban already has been filed.

� 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM

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Keywords: San Francisco, public nudity, nudity ban, Castro, gay neighborhood

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1 - 5 of 5 Comments

KarlVDH
5 months ago
Mike... really? you managed to work Obama into this? Amazing.
Kill Joy
6 months ago
Perversion means perverting the Holy meaning of what something is meant to be. Sex was designed for procreating,for instance. Sex is a pleasurable experience,that's nice,but it is not everything,as a matter of fact it is like most sorts of things,you can live without it,especially if it becomes an obsessive-compulsive addiction,where the act of inter coarse becomes more important than the result nine months later,as birth is the ultimate climax to the joy of sex. Birth of a child is the ultimate experience of a man or a woman for sharing in the ultimate joy that sex brings. The human body is sacred. Nudity is seductive it is not intended to be a common public interaction. Nudity increases the desire to have sex. The human body is beautiful but it changes over time and loses that youthful splendor. Most bodies are better off not to be viewed in public. People might not be too complementary to in public naked people either,sorry but that is human nature.
mike robertson
6 months ago
I have no doubt the president carried 100% of the vote in these districts. A morally corrupt administration, like we have had for the past 4 years, must be appealing to people who feel no shame in acting this way. As we move farther from God we should not be surprised to see activity like this. On Thanksgiving Day I thank God for His goodness and grace. I cry inside because, when I was a child, born in the 1950's, it would have been a horrific nightmare if someone told me what the world would look like in fifty short years. In addition to the ugliness in San Francisco, we have a morally corrupt executive branch in Washington which advocates: 1) killing babies inside and outside of their mom's womb (after the children survive the attempt to kill them in their mom's womb), 2) equating sexual perversion (what is considered normal by these San Francisco people) the equivalent of Holy Matrimony, and 3) is waging a war against the Church under the guise of "health care". In addition we get a brutal "social justice" economy giving us real increases in unemployment and poverty and real decreases in income and wages. So on Thanksgiving Day I thank Catholic democrats for the corrupt social policy and miserable economic policy for which they have voted.
Emma
6 months ago
SanFrancisco is NOT a beacon of light to the rest of the world that they so arrogantly claim, but a perversion! Can't even take your children or grandparents there! My grandmother doesn't want to see some freak's junk!! There are places there I'd like to patronize, but once was enough. Won't go back after witnessing them whipping each other naked in the street. It's gonna take more than an antinudity ordinance, maybe another quake and fire ...I feel for the decent people who through circumstances are forced to live there!
DLL
6 months ago
Nothing wrong with the human body. Pubic Nudity? No thanks! Too unsanitary. Keep the package packaged thank you. New and exciting diseases we do not need. The human body is sexier on modest people and it is respected as sacred. All the wrong people want to be nude anyway. Believe me most of them look disgusting without clothes,it is actually a huge turn off. Just my opinion. Cheers.

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