I found this excellent post by Brian Kraemer online and thought it was much too good not to repost:
From the universe's point of view, public nudity is already legal and has always
been so, in all places and at all times. Every human being has always been free
to be, to simply be. Any attempts by other human beings to take away this
freedom are null, void, invalid, meaningless. They are an offense to the
creature and to the source from whence came the creature.
A brave creature will resist the offender and insist upon his universal gift of
being. He will do this not only for himself but for others, that we might all
enjoy our being. It would take few brave souls to accomplish this because we
know it to be true. One does not teach a baby to nurse and one does not teach a
creature to live in his skin.
From the universe's point of view, some words do not exist (nude, naked,
unclothed, disrobed, unclad, unattired, garmentless) for these words have no
meaning in the natural state. There is only natural. Upon observation, we see
these words are lies. They misrepresent because they treat the hiding state as
the natural one. They falsely assert that first came the state of being clothed
and then judge others as unclothed. They falsely assert that first came the
state of being robed and then judge others to be disrobed. They falsely assert
that first came the state of being attired and then judge others as being
unattired. This distinction is not just a clever playing with words. This
distinction has us imprisoned first in our thinking and then in our lives. While
claiming to be free, we have been born in a prison state of mandatory hiding
with which we have agreed to confine ourselves.
Consider the word tan. If you were to see a man, richly colored brown above and
below his genitals, but palely white in his midsection with stark demarcation
lines from having been forced to hide behind a cloth, would you consider his
natural color to be the palely white or the rich brown? If you answered the
palely white, you are a prisoner to your own thinking. While most people will
consider his palely white genitals to be natural and would likely compliment him
on his pleasant tan, they are wrong. They have believed a lie. The man's natural
color is richly brown. The only unnatural part of this man is his palely white
genitals that have been denied their natural experience of the sun.
Stephen Gough has chosen to live free and thus, because of frightened human
beings, must spend his life in prison. He is a brave one for whom emotional and
spiritual freedom matters more than physical freedom.
In nature, a creature might hide its body to avoid a predator, but not to avoid
shame or embarrassment. If words must be created, then let us create some
unnatural words for unnatural states. Let us create hiding words, words that
might describe an infinite number of ways human creatures alone hide themselves:
clothes, garments, attire, costumes, apparel, vestments, uniforms, outfits,
raiment. If we must hide, then let us hide behind trees or bushes until danger
passes, but let us not live as if we were dead while we are yet alive.
Truth matters because the source of this universe intended that we might live
lives of fullness and meaning and satisfaction and pleasure and wholeness. We
have an obligation not only to ourselves and to others, but also to our source
to receive the gifts with which we have been entrusted. Henry David Thoreau
wrote, "The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation." Have we considered
that our disappointments in life, our longings for meaning and purpose, might be
a matter of our own refusal to receive fully what life has given?
And what is standing in our way, but fear of our fellow human beings? What shall
it be?
