Christian lawmaker and serial pest Fred Nile is at it again, doing his best to turn Australia into a nation of prudes. Apparently, women’s breasts make him feel funny, so he wants to ban them on beaches.
Arguing that the sight of women without bikini tops is offensive, Reverend Fred Nile, a conservative lawmaker of the Christian Democrats, has won backing from key politicians in the state of New South Wales to tighten existing laws covering nude sunbathing.
Nile has drafted a bill to be introduced in the legislature to ban topless sunbathing in the eastern Australian state.
“The law should be clear. It must say exposure of women’s breasts on beaches will be prohibited,” he was quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph.
What’s the compelling reason here?
“If we don’t, we could have people saying ‘I’m not nude. I can walk (topless) down (Sydney’s main street),” he said.
One lawmaker has considered the possibilities, perhaps a bit too much.
“If you’re on the beach do you want somebody with big knockers next to you when you’re there with the kids?” asked Labour government MP Paul Gibson.
Well, um, exactly how big are we talking about here?
It’s difficult to imagine just how disconnected someone like Nile is. These are our bodies. Babies see breasts every day. Any normal person would just look away if they didn’t like them, but Nile wants to get the law involved because of his sense of disgust for the body and his desire to control others — not an atypical mix in Christianity. Has he not considered that restricting mammary visualisation will just drive kids to porn?
For those interested in preserving the cause of liberty, certain forms of protest spring easily to the imagination.
2 January 2009 at 9:20 pm
It can become a serious point however when places become as uncomfortable with the human body as we do in the states. There are serious discussions of banning women from breast feeding in public. I’ve even heard non-religious people who I would normally consider reasonable say they feel “icky” having to watch a woman breast feed. Others have asked if it is sanitary in a restaurant. I feel those perceptions are so far removed from the reality of what we are that it is close to a mental disorder.