Hernando County, Florida

Anti-Nudity Ordinance, 2002

Board of County Commissioners

|  Return to Hernando County |  Return to Local Issues |  Return to NAC Home |

When you write or call:

NAC encourages ALL NATURISTS to contact the Hernando County Commissioners. County planners have said they value tourism, and so it's appropriate for all naturists, residents of the county or not, to register their opinions.

WRITE: Since time is short, faxing or e-mailing your comments is the only way to get them to the Hernando County Commissioners on time. Keep your remarks brief and polite. Say very clearly that you oppose proposed anti-nudity ordinance and wish the commissioner to vote against it. If you are a Hernando constituent of the lawmaker to whom you are writing, please say so. Sign your fax or e-mail. Unsigned correspondence is often simply discarded.

If you choose to fax your comments, send all faxes to (352) 754-4477. Send a separate correspondence for each commissioner. County staff will not make copies of your fax for distribution and commissioners cannot be expected to pass a single fax from one to another.

CALL: The single switchboard number for all commissioners is (352) 754-4000 . Call this number and ask to speak to the commissioner or an aide. Keep your remarks brief and polite. When you are communicating by phone, always give your name. Anonymous calls are discounted. You will probably find that the commissioner is unavailable. Politely give your information to the aide, who is trained to report it to the lawmaker. Do not expect return calls from lawmakers. If you are a Hernando county resident, please say so. Be sure to say clearly and specifically that you oppose the proposed anti-nudity ordinance and wish the commissioner to vote against it.
 

The Naturist Action Committee suggests the following points:

1. The County has said that it wants to modernize its 25-year old ordinance addressing nudity, but the many of the study cited by the proposed ordinance as justification for claiming negative secondary effects are at least that old!

2. It would be surprising if ANY of the commissioners has read ANY of the studies on which the proposed ordinance relies. Politely ask. The studies themselves are marvels of imprecision and innuendo. In the Oklahoma City "study," for example, selected real estate agents were asked if they had a feeling about whether property values might possibly by decreased by the presence of a sexually oriented business.

3. Regardless of whether you believe the studies or not, not a single one of them addresses any effect of nudity in any context outside that of a sexually oriented business. Recreational nudity is not addressed. Nudist parks are not addressed. Yet these studies are the authorities being offered as the foundation for the prohibition of nude recreation.

4. It takes 352 words to describe the human buttocks?

5. The initial response to the original complainant by County Attorney Garth Coller was that the situation that prompted the complaint could be handled using existing county ordinances. Quoting from the officially adopted minutes of the March 12, 2002, meeting of the Board of Commissioners,

"He stated that the County's Nude Dancing and Exhibition Ordinance
would prohibit the behavior discussed by Reverend Mike Frazier."

The proposed ordinance is unnecessary.

6. The proposed Hernando County ordinance relies heavily on the Erie v. Pap's opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court. Since 2000, when that opinion was issued, fourteen U.S. Circuit Court cases have made reference to Erie v. Pap's. Like the proposed Hernando ordinance, each of the fourteen ordinances considered by the various U.S. Circuit Courts claimed to be solidly supported by Erie v. Pap's. Of the fourteen ordinances, ten were remanded back to a lower court for various reason, including overbreadth.

7. The proposed Hernando County ordinance is unconstitutionally overbroad. It seeks to prohibit broad manifestations of nudity for which it has no appropriate justification, no established basis and no legitimate grounds. If passed, it will be challenged. If challenged, it will have difficulties for the exact same reason that ten of the fourteen ordinances had difficulty when considered in the light of Erie v. Pap's by U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal. Naturists and nudists do not seek litigational confrontation with the County, but will be compelled to defend their legitimate interests.

8. The proposed Hernando County ordinance leans heavily on language it says was borrowed from a "tested" ordinance in St. Johns County. But the well-known Cafe 207, which was the object of the St. Johns County ordinance and the focus of the "test" is still in business as an adult-oriented entertainment establishment. Because of the acknowledged source of its language, the proposed Hernando County ordinance will be equally ineffective in eliminating ineffective in eliminating adult entertainment establishments. Meanwhile, it seeks to punish naturists, whose family-oriented values stand in sharp contrast to the evils attributed to it in the proposed ordinance.

9. The proposed ordinance would cause women to be singled out for special criminalization, based solely on the fact that they have breasts that are constructed to function occasionally as food sources for infants. If men had functional breasts, would they be banned as well? Serious questions concerning equal protection cannot be casually dismissed with various unsupported assurances from the county attorney that women can be treated differently from men in this manner under the law.

| Back to top | Return to Hernando County | Return to Local Issues | Return to NAC Home |