Gee, for a couple of guys who were all aflutter a few weeks ago about nude children and nude adults mixing at a nudist camp, U.S. Rep. Mark Foley and Gov. Jeb Bush are sure quiet about Club Natura.
Foley, in need of an issue for his run for the U.S. Senate, and Bush, who has nothing more important to worry about what with all of Florida's problems solved in the recent legislative session, got their underwear in a bunch a few weeks ago when they discovered that Lake Como, a Pasco nudist resort, has been running a summer camp for 11- to 17-year-olds from nudist families off and on over the past 10 years.
Naked kids at a nudist camp, a phenomenon that has been going on since the '30s, doesn't really seem to have caught on as an issue. This despite Foley's coming up with a report that a man who was once associated with an organization that began sponsoring the camps sold legal videotapes of children participating in nude events in other countries a year after the man had left.
Enter plans for Club Natura, a $5-million to $6-million venture in Hudson where the developer - a Quaker - plans a nudist resort for adults and children that will reflect his Christian beliefs.
Nary a word from Foley, Bush et al.
First, I have no doubts that Bill Martin of Sarasota County plans to do exactly what he says he is going to do:
Take a nudist camp that was poorly run by a now-deceased man with a lot of bad ideas, including exclusion of African-Americans, and turn it into a first-class, family oriented, affordable resort where everyone can have a great time.
Martin shuns some resorts that he says have become too sex-oriented, for him anyway, and he is right.
Just as there is in "textile" (a term some nudists use to describe people who prefer to wear clothes) resorts - say in the Catskills on one hand and your basic Club Med on the other - there is a more sexual undertone at some nudist resorts than at others, and people should seek out those at which they are most comfortable.
But the tone is set by the customers, not by the practice of nudism, which is just as often about overcoming what Martin calls "body shame," which he sees as "an indicator of our alienation from God."
My point is that it was wrong for Foley to assume that people at Lake Como were up to no good and to all but imply that child pornographers were sexually exploiting young campers who were busier practicing archery and learning how to paddle canoes than anything lurid.
The camp that Martin is changing has a long and sometimes checkered past.
There is some irony that the late Ward Gulvin, who owned the camp where Martin plans massive improvements, claimed a "religious" exclusion for his racist policies from U.S. civil rights law.
It is time for politicians to stop banking on the high visibility of the word "nudist," in creating nonissues based on their misperceptions of a completely legal and socially accepted pastime - and maybe, just maybe, concentrate on some of the real problems we deal with.
In voting for or against Foley - or Bush, whatever his aspirations are - I would like to know a lot more about how they feel about real issues, such as wars started on shaky pretenses, the erosion of civil rights and a health care delivery system (in case you missed my earlier sarcasm about malpractice insurance in Florida being fixed) spiraling out of affordability for too many Americans.
I want to know how we can start an expensive war, increase defense spending while cutting taxes for our wealthier citizens, how we can stop hemorrhaging jobs overseas, keep corporate robber barons from raping (don't get excited Mark and Jeb, I mean financially) their employees and stockholders and get John Ashcroft out of our e-mail, telephone calls, financial records and bedrooms.
Tell me what you are going to do about gay rights, unemployment, prescription costs for the elderly and political cronyism.
Go for the truth instead of the sound bite and talk about real problems instead of creating them where they don't exist.
