In December I wrote about the challenges nudists may face in 2023 after the Supreme Court’s challenging attack on the Due Process Clause. Due process essentially guarantees that a party will receive a fundamentally fair, orderly, and just judicial proceeding.
Both the Fifth and the Fourteenth amendments contain this fundamental recognition. The due process right cannot take a person’s basic rights to “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The due process right is designed to protect citizens from actions taken by federal or state governments, counties, towns, and cities.
As I said, nudists must look at what we can do to codify the freedoms we enjoy based on what we considered a right within common use, and hope the year ahead doesn’t further erode this stare decisis doctrine. Congress has started the process of codifying freedoms extended to others by previous court rulings. We need to keep up our efforts to do this too. The AANR Office and Florida Region efforts to codify the right to swimwear-free beach designations is an example of our efforts along those lines.
In AANR-West GAT have been pushing California State Parks to designate nude use areas. This has been something Parks have not done even though they have that authority under direction given to them by the Legislature years ago. When we meet with a park supervisor, we always bring this point up – they have the power to make the change on their own. Eventually we will find that supervisor with the confidence to direct a nude use designation. We just have to keep pushing until we find that person. At least that is how I feel about the efforts we make on your behalf.
Each year we staff a booth at the California Parks and Recreation Symposium. We tell those employees who stop by that they have the power to make change. We’ve been doing this long enough that those people have moved up in their respective organizations. The key to change is reinforcing the wholesome nudism mantra so when they are the movers and shakers, they know we are strong advocates for wholesome use of public lands and we work with them to open nude use on these sites.
-Tim Mullins