The right to bare

Re “The naked truth,” editorial, Aug. 22

I’m very disappointed in The Times’ defeatist attitude regarding the potential loss of the nude beach at San Onofre. You bemoan the loss of a bygone “gentler era,” yet don’t stand up for it.

Thank goodness everyone doesn’t just meekly go along with changes that they know are wrong. Of course being able to be nude at the beach isn’t a matter of life or death, but it’s important enough to lots of folks who gladly travel farther and pay a state park admission fee to go to this one tiny section of California’s 840-mile coastline.

The statement that “even if the Cahill Policy stayed in place, anti-nudist vigilantes will almost certainly make a point of ... filing regular complaints” is ridiculous. If the vigilantes were so offended by nudity that they have to go out of their way to observe, they could have been filing regular complaints for the last 30 years.

If the park rangers don’t have time to patrol for and cite people engaging in public sex in the parking lot, how are they going to find the time to cite people doing nothing more than sunbathing and swimming nude at the beach?

Suzanne Schell

Huntington Beach