Stamp out the Public Menace of Nudity
by Joseph C. Hinson
June 16, 2002

Pastor Ralph Ovadal is currently appealing his recent conviction of disorderly conduct for his verbal taunts of a nude beach goer. You may have missed this when it happened. Apparently Ovadal has taken it upon himself to rid the world of nudity. And to this end, he verbally assaulted a beach goer at Wisconsin's Mazo Beach. He was fined $209. The beach is on state property and is maintained by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, DNR.

Here's what happened from what I have picked up at various online sources.

Ovadal was part of a group of about 70 Christians on Memorial Day, 2001 protesting the beach on public property. The group was Wisconsin Christians United. Their fearless leader is Ovadal himself. Mazo Beach has for years been clothing optional.  A woman drove up. Like he and WCU had done numerous times, Ovadal went over to her. If he was trying to convert her, he may need some people skills. "Ma'am, you're acting like a whore," he said. "I have a right to say you're acting like a harlot. A Jezebel, ma'am, a whore. Give your life to Jesus Christ. You need to repent."

See. Something is wrong here. I mean, is this how they convert people? At least Jehovah's Witnesses have the common decency to knock on your door just as you sit down to eat. This guy gets in your face and calls you names all in the work of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

A warden of the DNR was also there. Ovadal addressed this man as well. "Why don't you tell her that she's acting like a whore? Why don't you be a real man? Do you care about the little children? Do you care about the young men? How many young men will be corrupted by the likes of this?" Now you may already see a pattern developing here. Maybe it's wrong, but something tells me it isn't far from the gospel. Ovadal has a problem with women. This woman is corrupting children and young men with her nakedness. Perhaps all women corrupt men.

In fact, WCU has alleged that all sorts of deviant behavior takes place at Mazo Beach. From Calling All Street Preachers and Evangelists to a Unique Ministry Opportunity! they claim, "...the nudists sometimes wade out into the center of the river for the express purpose of exposing themselves. The nudists, a high percentage of whom are sodomites, have also engaged in sexual activities on a sandbar in the middle of the river in full sight of the public."

"We do minister at Mazo beach to reprove the unfruitful works of darkness, to raise a defense of the young children being taken to the beach, to share the gospel with the lost, and to contain a metastasizing cancer which will spread across our nation if not stopped at Mazo beach. If the civil government is allowed to fund and protect public nudity at Mazo beach, soon similar situations will exist all across America."

Whoa! That's pretty heady to think that they can save America by simply stamping out public nudity at some beach in Wisconsin. Never mind that they're trying to generalize an entire group of people to suit their agenda. To say that all nudists are sodomites engaging in public sex would be like saying all fundamentalist Christians are whacked out right wing zealots with too much time on their hands and not enough brain in their heads. Nudism has existed in some fashion since God created Adam and Eve. Might I add that He created them nude. God didn't have a problem with them being nude until that damn snake came along.

Maybe that's why Ovadal seems to hate women so much. Afterall, it was Eve that bit the fucking apple.

Nudism has existed in some fashion since Adam and Eve were wandering around in the Garden of Eden. As The Unofficial Mazo Beach Website says, however, nude does not mean lewd. (They did spell it l-u-d-e. However, that's slang for a drug. One hopes the WCU doesn't catch this typo.) A general misconception of nudism is that the people that participate in this practice are all swingers -- or sodomites -- looking for a good time. This is pure and simple wrong. In every group of people, there will be those that go against the norm of the group. This doesn't mean that all within that group are the same way.

Some resorts or beaches, in fact, ban public displays of affection, use of alcohol, close dancing, or anything that might even hint at impropriety. Some of them even disallow singles from coming to the beach hoping to avoid the location becoming something of a place to meet and greet. In fact, many resorts cater to families thinking it breeds a healthy respect for the human body.

One thing that Mr. Ovadal and the WCU might be interested in is the growing Christian Naturism movement. Some Christians have a healthy respect for the human body. From Christian Naturism, "We do appreciate what God has created, and the greatest thing that He created was an image of Himself. Are you ashamed of God's Image? Read the account of mans creation in Genesis 1:26 again. Do you find Gods Image offensive, nasty, perverted, unclean, shocking, and just plain lewd?" Mr. Ovadal certainly thinks so. But then he's a fucking moron.

Pastor Ralph Ovadal and Dr. Tony Campolo debating homosexuality on the public sidewalk in Madison, Wisconsin. December 6, 1997. Source: WCU Scrapbook

To the media, Ovadal has shrugged his shoulders and called the 2001 incident a "robust exchange between two people in a public place." The district attorney disagreed and though the woman in question did not want to pursue civil action, he charged Ovadal and won in a court of law. Apparently he thought like many others, that this "robust exchange" was more like a one-sided tirade.

From the International Christian News site, "Janet Ovadal, a WCU spokesperson, told Wisconsin Christian News that DNR officers treated the Christians with contempt throughout the day, making numerous threats of arrest. " Hmm. I wonder whom Janet Ovadal may be related to. Also, I wonder why the DNR would threat WCU with arrest. Might it because they were harassing people who were acting well within their legal rights? The DNR would have been doing their job very poorly if they didn't do this.

As a nation, we need to get over this phobia we have over nudity. Europeans have a very liberal approach to nudity. They show it on prime time television. We could go a long way in learning from them. Nudity only equates to sex as it does because it's forbidden. Children like to be naked. They think it's fun. But they are taught that it is wrong and immoral. They learn that from us.

Ovadal is wrong. He's also going about it the wrong way. He's free to have his opinion and he's free to protest until the point that he restricts the free rights of others. But aside from that, he's not doing God any favors by calling innocent women whores and insinuating that regular people like you and me are sodomites and perverts. He's probably done more to harm the Word of God since those idiots in the 80s went on  rampage against "devil music."

Sources and selected links:
The Unofficial Mazo Beach Website
Calling All Street Preachers and Evangelists to a Unique Ministry Opportunity!
Christian Naturism
The Bible, Society and Nudity: A study of social nudity from a Biblical and secular perspective.
International Christian News

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