Well, It’s Back Off Again
Clothing, that is. The town council of Brattleboro, Vermont has reversed itself and will let a ban on nudity expire. From comments made by one member of the "selectboard", as it is formally known, it is evident that fuzzy thinking is alive and well at the local government level.
A month after passing the temporary ban, the Brattleboro Selectboard voted 3-2 on Tuesday to reject a proposed ordinance that would have made it permanent. When the emergency temporary ordinance expires next month, public nudity will no longer be illegal.
It's all about tolerance, one board member said.
"We in this country are going down a slippery slope these days," said Dora Bouboulis, noting a national newspaper recently published an article about the emergency ordinance under the headline "Tolerant town gets intolerant."
She said it wasn't up to the town to restrict anyone's right to dress or undress.
As I mentioned before, I honestly couldn't care less about people's clothing or lack thereof. Provided that lack of clothing is not inflicted on those who would rather not see it. Trumping the rights of one group with those of another is not tolerance - it is enabling passive-aggressive behavior. Given that there should be quite a lot of awareness that there are people who get their kicks exposing themselves to others, that is one real concern that Brattleboro is ignoring. Let's hope they don't find that out the hard way. There are also some issues of hygiene, but let's not go into detail on that. You might want to watch where you sit in Brattleboro, though.
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Blue Crab Boulevard » Driving With The Top Down — Tuesday, 4 September , 2007 @ 6:51 pm
By syn, Wednesday, 22 August , 2007 @ 12:31 pm
‘You might want to watch where you sit in Brattleboro, though.’
Especially if you don’t know whether the naked ones adhere to the ‘one sheet’ rule or not.
When in Vermont, be eco-friendly.
By Colin MacDougall, Wednesday, 22 August , 2007 @ 6:04 pm
Battleboro is real? I thought H.P. Lovecraft made it up.
By Gaius, Wednesday, 22 August , 2007 @ 6:13 pm
Brattleboro. But it could be fictional.