There’s an important article in the latest issue (#188) of BN, the magazine of British Naturism. Although in the public domain the article isn’t publicly available on-line so I’m reproducing a slightly cut version here. I trust BN and the author, Malcolm Boura, will forgive the reproduction which I hope is in naturism’s best interests.

Naturism is under threat – again

[BN] Research & Liaison Officer Malcolm Boura reports on the continuing fight to keep [naturism] within the law

Westminster Doings
The European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act are very important to naturism but they are under attack like never before. Some people do not like a requirement to treat people fairly.
They do not like having to treat people according to facts not prejudice and their tactics are appalling. As Liberty said in a recent letter “The amount of misinformation … is shocking”. The HRA
does not attack Parliament’s sovereignty, indeed it states that Parliament comes first. The convention has nothing to do with the EU and it was mainly written by Britain. A Bill has been introduced to withdraw from the convention. Prime Minister David Cameron intends to abolish the Act and there is no real prospect of an adequate replacement.

A few weeks ago, in an article for another magazine, I wrote, “We expect the Equality Act to be next. Just as we are reaching the point where we have some worthwhile legal protection it is under serious attack.”

Since then the government has launched, and concluded, an on-line consultation. I long ago gave up expecting government and politicians to aspire to the highest standards of probity but this was
particularly disturbing.

The consultation was described incorrectly so it was only by pure chance that we even heard of it. The title was “Unnecessary Regulation” but the Equality Act is not regulation, it is primary
legislation.

It was presented in a biased way. The title assumes that the Equality Act is unnecessary.

It only allowed a couple of weeks to reply but the Government code of practice says that the minimum should be 3 months.

BN made a response and it is available on our website. Don’t be under any illusions, the Equality Act is important to us. For example, a few months ago it helped one of our members obtain compensation when they lost their job, at least in part because they are a naturist. It could be of assistance in many other ways but there are already signs that Westminster is working to water it down and to restrict the activities of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The government and some influential MPs are working to censor the internet. Even they admit that there is no real evidence to justify it so it is nothing but prejudice. Instead they are shouting “Think of the children” and far too many people are jumping to obey without stopping to
actually think. Instead of proper consultation and debate they are bullying the ISPs into doing their dirty work for them and few people realise what is being done. There can be no public debate when the public don’t know about it. If this is approved, to reach naturist websites, you will have to prove that you are over 18 and sign up for ‘pornography.’ The message will be very clear. That naturism is dangerous, that it is pornography, and that if you are interested then you must be a social reprobate or pervert. The consequences for naturism will be very damaging.

Censors permitting, you can find out more on the BN website and members can join in the discussions on the BN members forums.

Police and legal
The trend in the right direction has continued and some patterns are emerging. Membership of BN does seem to make a difference. If there is a complaint then it helps to reassure the police that the nudity is because of naturism and not for some nefarious reason. That helps to prevent a complaint turning into an arrest and an arrest into a prosecution.

[…] The law gives the police immense discretion and there is no case law so nothing is certain but on a number of occasions recently the police have told a complaining neighbour that there has not been any offence. Indeed in one case the police investigated the complaining neighbour to see if they had committed the offence of “hate crime aggravated harassment”. BN membership and intervention by BN helped considerably with that case. […]

Poll
In 2001 naturism was threatened by the Sexual Offences Bill and BN commissioned NOP to carry out a public opinion poll. It was very helpful in seeing off that threat and it has proved very useful on many occasions since but it is getting rather dated. The tenth anniversary is a good time to repeat it. Some questions will be modified to better suit present circumstances but may well remain the same so that we can make comparisons.

Personally, I am not optimistic about the trends. There have been all sorts of pressures: government, prejudiced lobby groups, political opportunists, bigots, prudes, and many others that have contributed. We are now facing a series of challenges that are less obvious than the Sexual Offences Bill but that does not make them any less real and any less a threat. Much of it has been built on paranoia and myth over children.

A good quality poll is expensive so we are running an appeal to help pay for it […] We will announce the outcome of the appeal, and hopefully the results of the poll, in the next issue of this magazine […]

So what can we do to help?

Well the obvious thing is to write to your MP pointing out what’s going on and asking them to oppose any retrograde changes to the Human Rights and Equality Acts. I actually sent my MP a copy of this, and another relevant article. You could also join BN or contribute to the appeal to fund the new opinion poll.

Nudity needs to be normalised, not ostracised and submerged. I think few people realise how great, indeed how important, it is to be brought up to know nudity is perfectly normal.

Let’s hope some common sense prevails, but sadly, like Malcolm Boura, I’m not optimistic.