For more information on the
law and nudity in Missouri see the following;
PAGE 3 of
The Newsletter
April 2002 The Naturist Society / Naturist Action Committee / Naturist Education Foundation Victory!
NAC Leads Naturists in Defeat of Missouri Anti-Nudity Legislation
JEFFERSON CITY, Missouri
"Without fanfare or even much
public notice, Freshman Rep. Rick Johnson (D-Jefferson County) selected a totally unrelated bill to which he attached a rider
that would greatly increase the scope of the state's law regulating nudity.
The proposed new law was aimed directly at activities like skinnydipping and nude sunbathing with friends
at isolated streams or other remote locations.
Section 566.093 of the Missouri statutes presently says,
"A person commits the crime of sexual misconduct in the second degree
if he exposes his genitals under circumstances in which he knows that his conduct is likely to cause affront or alarm."
If you and your friends have taken care to assure that your skinnydipping or nude hiking
is in a spot where it is not likely to cause affront or alarm,
you're not in technical violation of the present law.
And because it can reasonably be assumed that those who come to a nudist resort
will not be affronted or alarmed by the nudity of others, those resorts are protected, too.
However, appended to the existing law, Rep. Johnson
added: "... or while being in a public place, other than a
restroom or shower room, in the presence of another person or persons."
Suddenly, naturism on public lands in Missouri was clearly and directly threatened.
And depending upon the interpretation of "public place" (and there have certainly been differing legal opinions on the term), nudist parks were potentially placed at risk, too.
A LITTLE HISTORY
House Bill 1577 was a run-of the-mill piece of legislation
when it was introduced. It proposed penalties for anyone who
improperly tampered with prescription drugs. Nothing about
the bill affected naturists specifically. Like so many other
measures that pass through the legislature virtually unnoticed,
HB 1577 was given a hearing. Predictably, no one testified
against it.
Then, in a move that's not uncommon in the Missouri
legislature, HB 1577 was combined with five other
unobtrusive but unrelated bills, and a single committee
substitute was put together for the entire lot. The result was a
rather lengthy but benign hodgepodge that contains a variety
of proposed new laws that most Missouri lawmakers would
have no trouble supporting.
It was on the back of this well oiled and likely-to-pass
vehicle that Rep. Johnson suddenly attached his potent anti-nudity language. Johnson made his move quietly without advance warning -----
For more on this , see the following web page from the National Action Comittee of The Naturist Society, listed below;
http://nac.oshkosh.net/AlertsAdvisor..._05-08-02.html
Keeping existing clothing optional sites legal and establishing new areas set aside for nude recreation.
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