![]() They maintained that their beach was the safest on the seashore and that they took care not to offend.īut other sunbathers complained that nudists had encroached on that part of the beach where swimsuits are worn, and that in the last two years the demarcation line between the two groups had blurred as Playalinda's popularity had grown. Frandsen and her husband, Marvin, a physicist who is the plaintiff in the pending lawsuit against the ordinance, bristled at suggestions that the parents here would allow improper sexual behavior around their children. "I teach her that nature is good, that that's why kids like to run around naked," said Jan Frandsen, 38, as she kept an eye on her 5-year-old daughter. They pointed at the scene around them - children playing with buckets of sand, couples strolling by holding hands, motionless bodies on towels, some nude, others covered - and asked if it was anything but the picture of harmless fun. They had set up a table with information about the controversy, and many wore hats and arm bands to protest the new law. ![]() Sitting under umbrellas on the "clothing optional" end of Playalinda one recent Sunday, shielded from the road by dunes, members of the Central Florida Naturists were amused and outraged by such accusations. "We're allowed to set a community standard, and our standard is that you should cover your private parts in public," he said, adding that he had a stack of complaints of "depraved sexual activity" among nude people on county beaches. In a recent newsletter, the Brevard County chapter of the American Family Association, a conservative group, thanked its members for helping to pass the Brevard ordinance, which it said would "allow you and your family to walk without fear of being offended, or worse, physically attacked, by nude or partially nude persons."ĭavid Caton, the state president of the association, said the nude sunbathers had become so numerous that they were "trying to take over the beaches of Florida."Īnd Randy O'Brien, a Brevard County Commissioner who voted for the ordinance, said he was confident the law would "stand up like a statue" in court. In many cases, said Pat O'Brien, a spokesman for the Naturist Society, a national nudism organization based in Oshkosh, Wis., these laws have been prompted by lobbying from Christian conservatives. Because of this, occasional efforts to shoo nudists away from Playalinda with citations have failed so far, while other nudist beaches like Dade County's Haulover Beach near Miami have been very popular, especially with foreign tourists.īut many counties have passed their own laws against nudity on public beaches in Florida and around the country. They say they have occupied a remote area of the 24-mile seashore, beyond lagoons and trails and the launching pads of the Kennedy Space Center visible to the south, for more than 25 years.įlorida courts have ruled that nudity alone does not violate the state's anti-lewdness statutes. Nudists who frequent Playalinda Beach, the main target of the Brevard County ordinance, say they are not about to give up without a fight their piece of one of the most pristine beaches in Florida, one of a handful in the state where nudity is still tolerated. Sheriff's deputies started handing out advisories about the new ordinance in June, but have not yet enforced it, pending a court ruling on a lawsuit in which a nude sunbather is challenging the ordinance's constitutionality. The ordinance, which was passed by the Brevard County Commission in a 3-to-2 vote on May 18, makes nudity in a public place a misdemeanor punishable by up to $500 in fines and 60 days in jail. "My deputies have better things to do than go to the beach looking for naked people." "I don't want to be bogged down with an ordinance that is not legal," Sheriff Miller said. He also said he would test the legality of the ordinance in court by making two arrests, of a man and a woman, before making further arrests. He said his deputies would worry only about full nudity and refer complaints about other states of undress to local prosecutors. Miller, who after 16 years as the Sheriff of Brevard County is being asked to enforce a law that requires his deputies to distinguish, for example, legal attire from a "G-string" or "dental floss" bathing suit. The two groups seemed to co-exist more or less peacefully until recently, when indignant conservatives persuaded the county to ban not only nudity but also "insufficient" beach attire.Īmong the dumbfounded is Claude W. For decades, the boardwalk at the northern end of Playalinda Beach on the Canaveral National Seashore near here has been the de facto border for two types of sunbathers: those with swimsuits, and those without.
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