Dental Assistant Fired For Being 'Irresistible' Is 'Devastated'

By ABC News | ABC NeTanya Rivero and Alyssa Newcomb report:After working as a dental assistant for ten years, Melissa Nelson was fired for being too "irresistible" and a "threat" to her employer's marriage.

"I think it is completely wrong," Nelson said. "I think it is sending a message that men can do whatever they want in the work force."

On Friday, the all-male Iowa State Supreme Court ruled that James Knight, Nelson's boss, was within his legal rights when he fired her, affirming the decision of a lower court.

"We do think the Iowa Supreme Court got it completely right," said Stuart Cochrane, an attorney for James Knight. "Our position has always been Mrs. Nelson was never terminated because of her gender, she was terminated because of concerns her behavior was not appropriate in the workplace. She's an attractive lady. Dr. Knight found her behavior and dress to be inappropriate."

For Nelson, a 32-year-old married mother of two, the news of her firing and the rationale behind it came as a shock.

"I was very surprised after working so many years side by side I didn't have any idea that that would have crossed his mind," she said.

The two never had a sexual relationship or sought one, according to court documents, however in the final year and a half of Nelson's employment, Knight began to make comments about her clothing being too tight or distracting.

"Dr. Knight acknowledges he once told Nelson that if she saw his pants bulging, she would know her clothing was too revealing," the justices wrote.

Six months before Nelson was fired, she and her boss began exchanging text messages about work and personal matters, such as updates about each of their children's activities, the justices wrote.

The messages were mostly mundane, but Nelson recalled one text she received from her boss asking "how often she experienced an orgasm."

Nelson did not respond to the text and never indicated that she was uncomfortable with Knight's question, according to court documents.

Soon after, Knight's wife, Jeanne, who also works at the practice, found out about the text messaging and ordered her husband to fire Nelson.

The couple consulted with a senior pastor at their church and he agreed that Nelson should be terminated in order to protect their marriage, Cochrane said.

On Jan. 4, 2010, Nelson was summoned to a meeting with Knight while a pastor was present. Knight then read from a prepared statement telling Nelson she was fired.

"Dr. Knight felt like for the best interest of his marriage and the best interest of hers to end their employment relationship," Cochrane said.

Knight acknowledged in court documents that Nelson was good at her job and she, in turn, said she was generally treated with respect.

"I'm devastated. I really am," Nelson said.ws Blogs – 11 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional gun rights supporters showed an increased willingness Tuesday to consider new legislation to control firearms in the aftermath of the Connecticut school shootings — provided it also addresses mental health issues and the impact of violent video games.

A former co-chairman of the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus, Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., and 10-term House Republican Jack Kingston — a Georgia lawmaker elected with strong National Rifle Association backing — were the latest to join the call to consider gun control as part of a comprehensive, anti-violence effort next year.

"Put guns on the table, also put video games on the table, put mental health on the table," Kingston said.

But he added that nothing should be done immediately, saying, "There is a time for mourning and a time to sort it out. I look forward to sorting it out and getting past the grief stage."

(video games? really? gun control in the same breath as video games? that's damn insulting,the madness that fueled this tragedy has nothing to do with video games. so long as there are people they will do terrible things, my sympathies the families who have suffered such terrible loss,the culprit having robbed them of justice by his own hand,but if we allow this one act of inhuman cruelty to cause us to seriously consider curtailing our liberties to kowtow to base fear is an insult to the dead.   )

Spider survives trip to outer space but not Washington

By Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo! News | The Sideshow – Wed, Dec 5, 2012

The vacuum of space was a minor inconvenience, but the poisonous atmosphere in Washington, D.C., proved too much for the world's first "spidernaut."

After just four days at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, "Nefertiti," a Johnson jumping spider, was found dead in its enclosure. But as the Daily Camera notes, the spider's passing came after it managed to survive a 42-million-mile journey that included 100 days aboard the International Space Station and a landing in the Pacific Ocean.

"That's how it is with living organisms. You just never know," said Stefanie Countryman, manager of K-12 educational projects at the University of Colorado's BioServe Space Technologies. "Someone didn't squish her. It wasn't something someone did. She had been eating well at the Smithsonian and active. There is no other explanation other than that she was reaching the end of her lifespan."

Neffi was 10 months old; the Johnson jumping spider typically lives about a year. While the Smithsonian said the spider of died of natural causes, it also confirmed that no postmortem tests were performed on Neffi.

"We want to add her to our collection so that we can continue to learn about spiders," said Smithsonian press officer Kelly Carnes. "And she is much more useful as a research specimen if we keep her intact."

Pizza Hut has created a limited-edition perfume

By Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo! News | The Sideshow – 20 hrs ago

What makes the perfect complement to a container of bacon-scented shaving cream? How about a new perfume from Pizza Hut?

The pizza perfume started as a joke on the Pizza Hut Facebook page but evolved into the real thing after enough people signed up as fans on the site.

Pizza Hut's director of marketing says the scent is designed to smell like freshly baked dough with "a little bit of spice" mixed in. We discovered it was hard to match the smell of freshly baked bread, but it smells somewhat close, Beverly D'Cruz told Business Insider.

An entry on the Facebook page reads:

"We've decided to reward our 100,000 fans by actually creating the Pizza Hut perfume! The first 100 people to direct message us will get a bottle of this limited-edition scent. Share this photo with a friend!"

Pizza Hut is no stranger to unusual creations under the umbrella of its franchise. For example, in April, Pizza Hut restaurants in the Middle East began offering a cheeseburger-crusted pizza to customers.

Sadly,

Burglar calls 911 to save himself from gun-wielding homeowner

By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News | The Sideshow – 5 hrs ago

(only in Texas)

A suspected burglar called 911 after the owner of the home he broke into caught and held him at gunpoint.

The suspect, Christopher Moore, placed the emergency call in Springtown, Texas, during the botched burglary attempt early Tuesday after James Gerow, the homeowner, and Gerow's son pointed guns at him as he sat in his pickup truck parked in the driveway.

"I'm out in the country somewhere," Moore told the 911 operator during the 10-minute call. "Some guy's got a gun on me."

Gerow's wife, Lindy, placed a concurrent call to 911 that confirmed Moore's account.

"You better come quick," she said, "or my husband's going to shoot him."

"If he gets out of the truck, shoot him in the legs," James Gerow told his son, according to the Dallas Morning News Crime Blog. "You ain't gotta kill him—just shoot him in the legs."

When police arrived, both Moore and Lindy Gerow were still talking to 911 dispatchers.

According to CBS' Dallas-Fort Worth affiliate, Moore was arrested and charged with burglary. He's currently being held on a $35,000 bond.

Greek jobless rate up to record 26 percent

By By DEREK GATOPOULOS and NICHOLAS PAPHITIS | Associated Press – 1 hr 14 mins ago

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's unemployment rate rose to a new record of 26 percent in September, underscoring the economic plight in the country as it heads toward a sixth year of recession.

The Greek Statistical Authority said Thursday that 1.295 million people — more than one-fourth of the workforce in this nation of 10 million — were recorded as unemployed in September. Unemployment rose from 25.3 percent the previous month and 18.9 percent a year earlier.

Greek unemployment has surged to the highest since the 1960s as a result of harsh austerity measures imposed in return for vital international rescue loans.

The conservative-led coalition government is finalizing a major tax reform bill, demanded by international rescue creditors as one of several conditions for continued payments. It has promised to try to stem the country's recession, despite being forced last month to introduce another round of deeply unpopular austerity measuresthat are part of Greece's bailout commitments.

These measures include raising €3 billion ($3.9 billion) in extra tax revenue.

A draft of the new tax bill presented to the conservatives' two center-left coalition partners late Thursday calls for cuts in corporate tax rates from 40 to 33 percent, a move meant to provide relief to employers struggling to cope with the crisis while maintaining a sufficient flow of tax revenue.

The draft also lowers the top income tax rate from 45 to 40 percent, but it expands the number of people who would have to pay that rate by including all incomes over €40,000 ($52,000) a year.

Finance ministry officials said the draft bill also provides for a rise in the tax-free threshold to €9,000 ($11,700) — from €5,000 ($6,500) — linking family benefits with income, and higher taxation on farmers.

The tax bill must be submitted to Parliament for approval by Tuesday, two days before Greece is due to receive a new €34 billion ($44.4 billion) rescue loan installment.

Earlier this week, the Bank of Greece confirmed government forecasts that the economy would contract by more than 6 percent this year, and by a further 4-4.5 percent next year. By the end of 2013, the economy is expected to have shrunk by 25 percent in six years.

The effects are most visible in the unemployment rate, which stood at just under 10 percent just before Greece's financial crisis began in late 2009. Since then, jobs have been vanishing at a pace of almost 1,000 a day.

The largest labor union, the GSEE, has predicted the jobless rate will reach 29 percent next year.

"According to our calculations, the recession next year will be between 5 and 5.5 percent ... The money being taken out of the economy due to higher (taxes) is driving the recession," Savvas Rombolis, head of labor research at the union, told private Skai radio.

"So more businesses will close, more people will lose their jobs, and fewer graduates will find work."

'Sex Addiction' Still Not Official Disorder

(well isn't everybody a little addicted to sex?)

By Rachael Rettner, MyHealthNewsDaily Staff Writer | LiveScience.com – 2 hrs 13 mins ago

Despite recent strides in "sex addiction" research, the condition does not make the cut as an officialpsychiatric disorder, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

On Dec. 1 the APA approved the latest version of its mental health handbook known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5. The manual includes several new disorders such as hoarding and binge eating.

But guidance for diagnosing and treating sex addiction, formally known as hypersexual disorder, won't be included.

Although the manual has an appendix that includes "provisional" conditions requiring further research,hypersexual disorder will not appear in this section either.

The decision comes after a study published in October in which researchers tested the proposed criteria for hypersexual disorder, and found that physicians generally agreed on who should be diagnosed with it — a demonstration of the criteria's reliability and validity.

Rory Reid, a research psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who lead that study, said he was not surprised the APA did not approve hypersexual disorder for the DSM-5, becausesexual disorders are generally controversial.

There are also still questions the APA may want addressed. Studies of the criteria included only people who were already seeking help for a mental condition, or were referred to a mental health clinic, Reid said. So it's not clear whether the criteria would apply in diagnosing people in the general population, he said.

In Reid's study, hypersexual disorder was defined as "recurrent and intense sexual fantasies, sexual urges, and sexual behavior," that lasted at least six months.

Diagnosis requires that these urges cause the patient distress, and aren't brought on by drugs or another mental disorder. The behavior must also interfere with their life, for instance, some patients in the study lost jobs because they could not refrain from watching pornography and masturbating at work. Developing the criteria was a significant step in the field because it will allow researchers to study the disorder in a uniform way, Reid said.

And although hypersexual disorder is not officially acknowledged in the APA's new manual, Reid said he would see little change in his day to day work.

"People are still coming into the therapist office and saying this is a problem. As a psychologist...I'm going to try to understand what's going on, I'm going to try to help them," Reid said. "That’s true whether it's in the DSM or not."

The APA did not return a request for comment in time for the publication of this article.

Vandals destroy millions of dollars worth of Italian wine

By Mike Krumboltz | The Sideshow – 4 hrs ago

It seems borderline sacrilegious. A group of vandals destroyed millions of dollars worth of Case Basse di Soldera wine in Italy's Tuscan hills. No bottles were stolen.

[Related: Wine compound may halt bowel cancer]

About 16,500 gallons of future Brunello di Montalcino were lost. The winery's owner posted a statement following the destruction, which read it part:

"This gesture deserves no description, such is the seriousness that it will ring out well beyond the boundaries of our winery. The authorities will do their duty, we trust, with the help of those who want to collaborate."

Brunello is one of Italy's best known (and priciest) wines. Bloomberg reports that it is made "exclusively with Sangiovese grapes according to the standards set in 1888 for the producers. The wine is aged in oak casks for five years before it can be drunk." Bottles of the winery's 2006 vintage sell for between $250 and $350 each. This ain't your average bottle of Two Buck Chuck.

[Related: Missing wine wasn't missing after all]

The winery is run by Gianfranco Soldera and his family. He told Reuters, "This is beyond me. I can't get into the minds of the people who did this but I guess if someone plans to intimidate me it has to start somehow." He continued: "We will carry on," Soldera said. "We have passion for this land and its produce and no amount of intimidation can stop us."

At 450 pounds, Ohio killer fights execution

( I find myself baffled by this,when will we get it thru our heads. killing should never be easy, no matter how much it gets sanitised and prettied up as"humane", or "justice" this guy killed someone,blood is demanded so he can"pay for his crimes". so just shoot him! behead him! whatever dead is dead, no backsies. who gives a rat's ass how he gets there. if it's already a foregone conclusion he's gotta die than stop being such utter pussies about it and just do it already! or perhaps realise that no amount of torture or death will bring the lives this criminal ended and maybe,just maybe try to develope some sort of reform)

By By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS | Associated Press – 4 hrs ago

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — At about 450 pounds, Ohio death row inmate Ronald Post is so fat that his executioners won't be able to find veins in his arms or legs for the lethal injection, and he might even break the death chamber gurney, his lawyers say.

If the state is forced to use a backup method that involves injecting the drugs directly into muscle, the process could require multiple doses over several hours or even days and result in a grueling and painful end, they say.

Post, who gained close to 200 pounds on death row, is trying to stave off execution Jan. 16 for the 1983 killing of a motel clerk during a robbery, arguing that because of his obesity, an attempt to put him to death would amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

State officials say Post, 53, can be humanely executed under both Ohio's usual method and the untested backup procedure. The warden at the prison where the death chamber is situated even tested the gurney by piling 540 pounds of weights on it for two hours.

Post has not presented "sufficient evidence demonstrating that his obesity or other physical conditions will present a substantial risk that his execution cannot be conducted in a humane and dignified manner," Assistant Attorney General Charles Wille said in court papers.

A federal judge in Columbus will hold a hearing on Post's claim later this month.

Post's case is not without precedent: In 1994, a federal judge in Washington state ruled that convicted killer Mitchell Rupe, at more than 400 pounds, was too heavy to be hanged because he might be decapitated. After numerous court rulings and a third trial, Rupe was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2006.

If Post manages to stop his execution because of his weight, the legal precedent may not be far-reaching, because of the very small number of death row inmates who are that obese, said Deborah Denno, a Fordham University law professor and expert on lethal injection. And she said it is unlikely prisoners would begin stuffing themselves to try to fend off execution.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment, predicted states will find a way around obesity claims by adjusting their execution procedures, perhaps by changing the drug or the dosage.

"Inmates probably will recognize that that's a thin straw to hang your hopes on," he said.

In 2007, it took Ohio executioners about two hours to insert IVs into the veins of condemned killer Christopher Newton, who weighed about 265 pounds.

At 6-foot-2½, Post weighed 260 pounds around the time he was moved to death row in 1985. His weight has gone up and down behind bars, and at one time he lost 150 pounds through dieting, his lawyers say.

But knee and back problems have made it difficult to exercise, his lawyers say. They also say Post's request for gastric bypass surgery was denied, he has been told not to walk because he might fall, and severe depression has contributed to his inability to control how much he eats.

The Ohio prison system would not comment on how Post gained so much weight behind bars. They said meals are served in reasonable portions and seconds are not allowed, and they provided copies of prison menus that list healthier options such as low-fat milk, vegetarian patties and mixed vegetables.

Inmates can buy sweet and salty snacks from the commissary.

A doctor who examined Post for the defense said Post does not have accessible veins in his arms, hands or legs.

"Given his unique physical and medical condition there is a substantial risk that any attempt to execute him will result in serious physical and psychological pain to him, as well as an execution involving a torturous and lingering death," Post's attorneys argue in court papers.

His lawyers have indicated they would fight any attempt by the state to employ a third possible procedure: the "cut-down" method, in which executioners cut into the condemned man's arms to find a vein. Ohio's execution policies don't call for such an approach, and it is unclear if the state can go ahead with such a procedure without court approval.

___

Mitt Romney rejoins Marriott board

By By SAMANTHA BOMKAMP | Associated Press – 10 hrs ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Former presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is rejoining Marriott International's board of directors.

He's held the post with the hotel chain twice before. The first time was from 1993 to 2002, when he left to campaign for governor of Massachusetts, and from 2009 to 2011, when he left to start his campaign for the presidency.

It's the first job announcement Romney has made since he lost the November election to President Barack Obama. Romney has kept a low profile since the election. He's spent the past month largely in seclusion at his family's California home.

Romney has been connected to the Marriott dynasty all of his life. He was named after J.W. Marriott. Romney's full name is Willard Mitt Romney and Marriott's was John Willard Marriott. Marriott, who founded the company in 1927, was close friends with Romney's father.

Marriott International Inc. is based in Bethesda, Md.

Store employee fired after ‘booting’ ambulance

(he probably thought it was just the ghost busters)

By Mike Krumboltz | The Sideshow – 8 hrs ago

One generally assumes that an ambulance with its lights flashing can park wherever it pleases. This past weekend in New Orleans, a parked ambulance was "booted" by a convenience store employee, who was apparently annoyed that the ambulance had parked in his store's lot. Never mind that the paramedics were treating a man inside the store. That employee has since been fired.

According to a report from WWLTV.com, the paramedics put the patient in the back of the ambulance and began to drive away when the vehicle came to a sudden stop. The medics saw that someone had put a boot on their vehicle. When a store employee finally removed the boot, the tire was flat. The paramedics had to call for backup while the man with chest pains waited in the back.

[Related: Snow traps drivers for days in giant Russian traffic jam]

Jeb Tate, spokesman for New Orleans Emergency Medical Services, said, "We actually had to delay that patient's care by calling another ambulance out here to come transport this patient."

Now, a few days later, WWLTV.com reports that the convenience store employee has been fired and issued a citation by the New Orleans Police Department for simple criminal damage to property. According to the police report, the man, Ahmed Sidi Aleywa, claimed that he didn't know that the vehicle was an ambulance and that he doesn't speak English.

Judge temporarily blocks Calif. gay therapy law

(silly judge you have to pray away the gay not pschoanalyse it. seriously though this is s astep in the right direction.)

By By LISA LEFF | Associated Press – 1 hr 29 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked California from enforcing a first-of-its-kind law that bars licensed psychotherapists from working to change the sexual orientations of gay minors, but he limited the scope of his order to just the three providers who have appealed to him to overturn the measure.

U.S. District Court Judge William Shubb made a decision just hours after a hearing on the issue, ruling that the First Amendment rights of psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals who engage in "reparative" or "conversion" therapy outweigh concern that the practice poses a danger to young people.

"Even if SB 1172 is characterized as primarily aimed at regulating conduct, it also extends to forms of (conversion therapy) that utilize speech and, at a minimum, regulates conduct that has an incidental effect on speech," Shubb wrote.

The judge also disputed the California Legislature's finding that trying to change young people's sexual orientation puts them at risk for suicide or depression, saying it was based on "questionable and scientifically incomplete studies."

The law, which was passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in October, states that therapists and counselors who use "sexual orientation change efforts" on clients under 18 would be engaging in unprofessional conduct and subject to discipline by state licensing boards. It is set to take effect on Jan. 1.

Although the ruling is a setback for the law's supporters, the judge softened the impact of his decision by saying that it applies only to three people — psychiatrist Anthony Duk, marriage and family therapist Donald Welch, and Aaron Bitzer, a former patient who is studying to become a counselor who specializes in clients who are unhappy being gay.

The exemption for them will remain in place only until Shubb can hold a trial on the merits of their case, although in granting their request for an injunction, the judge noted he thinks they would prevail in getting the law struck down on constitutional grounds.

Bitzer, Duk and Welch were represented by the Pacific Justice Institute, a Christian legal group. President Brad Dacus said he thought Shubb's ruling would have a chilling effect that would keep the licensing boards that regulate mental health professionals from targeting other practitioners.

"If there are any, we can easily add them to the case as a plaintiff," Dacus said. "We know we will have to have another hearing on the merits, but to be able to get a preliminary injunction at this stage is very telling as to the final outcome, and I'm very encouraged by it."

Complicating the outlook for the law is that another federal judge in Sacramento is considering similar arguments from four more counselors, two families and a professional association of Christian counselors, but has not decided yet whether to keep the ban from taking effect.

"We are disappointed by the ruling, but very pleased that the temporary delay in implementing this important law applies only to the three plaintiffs who brought this lawsuit," National Center for Lesbian Rights Legal Director Shannon Minter said. "We are confident that as the case progresses, it will be clear to the court that this law is fundamentally no different than many other laws that regulate health care professionals to protect patients."

Lawyers for the state argue that outlawing reparative therapy is appropriate because it would protect young people from a practice that has been rejected as unproven and potentially harmful by all the mainstream mental health associations.

The welfare of a missing 11-year-old leukemia patient who was taken from a Phoenix hospital by her mother the day before she was scheduled to be discharged is the prime concern for authorities, who fear a catheter in the girl's heart could become infected and endanger her life.

The patient, who is known as Emily, recently battled an infection and had her right arm amputated. Surveillance video captured Emily, a young boy, and Emily's mother, who police are only identifying as Norma, walking out of Phoenix Children's Hospital at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

"In this particular case, we have again an 11-year-old girl who can't really decide for herself," said Sgt. Steve Martos of the Phoenix Police Department. "Her parents are now removing her from the hospital and putting her in danger by not providing that last bit of medical attention that she needs."

The search has been difficult for officers, Martos said, since Emily and her family are from Mexico and have no locally listed records in Arizona.

A nurse supervisor called 911 when she realized Emily was missing and described how she was able to avoid detection.

"She was wearing a wig, which is not unusual , a lot of our cancer patients wear wigs," the supervisor said. "She wasn't wearing a wig when she went into the bathroom though and then she was wearing a wig when she came out and she was actually covering her right arm, the amputated arm."

Police said Norma removed Emily's IV before walking her out of the hospital in street clothes.

The family left the hospital in a black van and have not been seen since.

It's not clear how long Emily had been a patient at the hospital or what may have prompted her mother to take her before she was scheduled to be discharged.

NEWSER) – Here's a macabre tale: A woman in central Russia kept her husband's dead body for three years and told her kids to talk to him and feed him, AFP reports. When her husband, a Pentecostal missionary, died in 2009, she simply left him on a bed in their apartment. She ordered their five home-schooled children to "'talk' to their father and 'feed' him with a broth she made," said investigators. "The children, who were worried for their mother and realized their father was dead, would tell her that he talked to them and ate the food."

They even covered the scent of his decomposing corpse with air fresheners, but finally had to dispose of him when the family moved to another town. So two of the kids, girls aged nine and 14, put him in bags and left him in the bushes—but his right hand and head broke off, so they dumped them in a garbage bin. Police later investigated but determined that the mother posed no danger to anyone, even though she was mentally unstable. Amazingly, an examination of the kids determined that they were still mentally healthy.

When Kristen Cunnane was in middle school, she was molested by one of her male teachers. Years later, she and several other survivors managed to charge their attackers for the crime, suing California's Moraga school district for sheltering these predators.

Now Moraga’s lawyers have formed a response: Kristen Cunnane was so "careless" and "negligent" when she was 12 years old that she practically deserved to be raped.

"She was herself responsible," the district and three other defendants' attorneys wrote in aOct. 24 legal filing. "Carelessness and negligence on her part proximately contributed to the happenings of the incident."

This is a 12-year-old girl we're talking about here. A scared little girl molested by a man she thought she could trust, now a young woman being told that this teacher’s advances were her "responsibility" to deflect.

Please, join us in writing the Moraga school district and its legal team to express your horror and disgust at their attack on Kristen Cunnane. If we can bring enough media attention to this story, we can stop this appalling victim-blaming once and for all -- but if we don’t speak out, more women and girls will be shamed into silence.

PETITION TO MORAGA SCHOOL DISTRICT: Blaming pre-teen victims for the actions of their molesters is nothing short of horrific. We demand that you stop the assault on Kristen Cunnane and her fellow survivors, taking responsibility for your failure to protect them from predatory teachers.

San Francisco lawmakers vote to ban public nudity

By LISA LEFF | Associated Press – 5 hrs ago

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  Associated Press/Jeff Chiu - Protester Gypsy Taub speaks out against the Board of Supervisors decision to ban public nakedness while naked at City Hall in San Francisco, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2012. San Francisco …more 

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco lawmakers disappointed committed nudists Tuesday by narrowly approving a ban on public nakedness despite concerns the measure would undermine thecity's reputation as a sanctuary for free expression.

The Board of Supervisors voted 6-5 in favor of a public safety ordinance that prohibits exposed genitals in most public places, including streets, sidewalks and public transit. The law still must pass a final vote and secure Mayor Edwin Lee's signature to take effect early next year.

Supervisor Scott Wiener introduced the ban in response to escalating complaints about a group of men whose bare bodies are on display almost daily in the city's predominantly gay Castro District.

"The Castro, and San Francisco in general, is a place of freedom, expression and acceptance. But freedom, expression and acceptance does not mean anything goes under any circumstances," Wiener said Tuesday. "Our public spaces are for everyone, and as a result it's appropriate to have some minimal standards of behavior."

Wiener's opponents on the board said a citywide ban was unnecessary and would draw police officers' attention away from bigger problems while undermining San Francisco values like tolerance and appreciation for the offbeat.

"I'm concerned about civil liberties, about free speech, about changing San Francisco's style and how we are as a city," Supervisor John Avalos said. "I cannot and will not bite this apple and I refuse to put on this fig leaf."

To make his point, Avalos showed his colleagues a clip from the 1970 movie version of Joseph Heller's "Catch-22." In it, Orson Welles pins a medal on a naked soldier.

"I get emails all the time about people who are upset there are homeless people, and I would be the last person to legislate a solution for people who do not want homeless people in their neighborhood,"Supervisor Christina Olague said.

Wiener countered that it was inappropriate for hard-core nudists to wrap themselves in the mantle of personal liberty.

"I don't agree that having yellow hair is the same as exposing your penis at a busy street corner for hours and hours for everybody to watch as they go by," he said.

Under Wiener's proposal, a first offense would carry a maximum penalty of a $100 fine, but prosecutors would have authority to charge a third violation as a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $500 fine and a year in jail.

Exemptions would be made for participants at permitted street fairs and parades, such as the city's annual gay pride event and the Bay-to-Breakers street run, which often draws participants in costumes or various states of undress.

A federal lawsuit claiming the ban would violate the free speech rights of people who prefer to make a statement by going au naturel was filed last week in case the ordinance clears its final hurdles.