I sympathise with this fellow. People in general are far too prudish. On the other hand I haven't spent the last six years metaphorically banging my head against a wall to try and change them.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 75646.html

I've had people make comments just cos I own a lot of black t-shirts, never mind what he's doing , so I'm pretty much of the opinion that he should be allowed to go where he wants. I think the country would get over it right and quick too...

It seems utterly indefensible to me to lock someone away for the "crime" of not wearing clothes.

But then Britain has a long history of locking up people who don't conform to "social norms", we used to lock men away for having sex with other men in the privacy of their own home...

I wouldn't find a person walking down the street alarming, indecent or offensive.

The thing is he's long past any moral high ground he might claim to occupy. He's no longer espousing an argument, that's done and dusted. He's just being belligerent and stubborn. I've never met a walker/ hill climber who considered him anything other than a tedious exhibitionist.

Jon

It's our own morals and beliefs that are failing to play catch-up here. The situation draws easy parallels to the treatment of homosexuals and other "sexual deviants" in Britain and elsewhere, the Catholic Church and Galileo etc.

Interesting you should put that in inverted commas, given it is actually a crime - of which he has been convicted several times. You can like that or not but it doesn't change the fact. He's been told what he's doing is a crime but he carried on doing it anyway. Should we all be able to ignore any laws we don't agree with then?


We've also got a long history of locking up people who repeatedly break the law. There are plenty of social norms we as a society tolerate limited non-conformity to. we are... flexible, to a degree. He's decided to pick an issue society is less flexible on, and then to continue pushing it over and over again. When does 'a principled stand' pass over into belligerence? Because he's long past the point where the argument could have ever been won.


Well, that would be a valid comparison, apart from the whopping great part of of that comes with 'in the privacy of their own home' because that's the exact opposite of what he's doing. If he wanted to be naked in the privacy of his own home, nobody would give a crap.


Fair enough. But then it's not mine or your individual decision to make (although I would suggest that, in pure dictionary definition terms, it almost certainly would be 'indecent' even if not offensive or alarming or embarrassing). The law is as it is. We can vote for MPs who would change it in a way we'd prefer but I can't imagine any MP would consider this issue a vote winner...

Jon

With all due respect, that's a false argument. It starts from the premise that his morals and beliefs are better than society's prevalent ones, so the 'correct' way for us to go is towards him. I don't see any evidence to suggest that's the case, nor do I see any method where you could objectively prove such a thing. You may want us all to be more like him. But you have no right to insist that we should be.


Yes, because everyone who has ever been out of step with the norms of society has been persecuted equally

Persecuted equally? No, but persecuted nonetheless.

Human beings have a long, tragic history of punishing (and even killing) select groups purely for not fitting into what is accepted as "normal" at any given point in a particular society.

Britain has made many laws which are now ashamed of. Locking someone away for choosing to portray themselves in what is, by definition, the most natural way possible seems utterly ludicrous.

We seem quite happy to buy newspapers with the potential of some royal nudity in it though.

I don't. You can't pick and chose which laws you want to follow and which you don't. Whether or not you or I find what he does okay is irrelevant. You keep breaking thelaw, especially the same law, you're going to pay a higher and heigher price.

Having said that I seriously doubt he's mental in any way, just stubborn.

Not to mention the infamous Page 3 (and numerous "lads mags").

Public nudity is not illegal.
"Technically, there is no law against being nude in public in the United Kingdom. Simple nudity is not illegal. However, using nudity to "harass, alarm or distress" others is an offence against the Public Order Act of 1986."

http://gouk.about.com/od/uknudebeaches/f/nudity_law_uk.htm

Given that a lot of people find public nudity alarming or distressing and that a nude person would have no way in advance of knowing that (except in places like nudist beaches), then it's effectively illegal in most places.

Section 5 of the Public Order Act is a horrible piece of legislation, it has been used to arrest people for asking if a police horse is gay and for describing Scientology as a cult, to give just two examples.

There is an active campaign to have it abolished.

Law banning insulting words and behaviour 'has to end'

I describe scientology as a cult...... because it is.


Surely if he'd written "In my opinion Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult." then he would have been allowed to do that under free speach laws?