St. Francis Nudity Ban Protest, 26 June 2014. All photos by Leif Heilberg.
Jeff Wheeler invited us to World Naked Bike Ride – San Francisco’s event: 11th Annual World Naked Bike Ride – 2014 Northern Hemisphere Edition Pt. 1 Saturday, June 14, 2014, 10:30am – 5:30pm at Justin Herman Plaza.
Since Saint Francis of Assisi was a nudist, Bay Area activists decided to celebrate his 238th anniversary, right in front of the church of St. Francis, 610 Vallejo Street.. After all, the city of San Francisco was named after that saint.
Although a local police station is only a block and a half up Vallejo Street, and policemen both on foot and in patrol cars had passed the activities on the corner, none of them bothered to come back and make any troubles.
Both the nice and friendly Rusty Mills as well as some others from the San Francisco gay community, were here to lend support via their nude bodies to the idea of protesting Scott Wiener’s imposed ban on nudity in the city.
The ubiquitous George Davis, who as a nudist has stood for city office numerous times, was also here to support the group.
By 1:20pm a dozen of the group stripped completely nude and began a protest march up Vallejo Street, down a side street, and back via Broadway and Columbus. By 1:50pm the protest marchers had returned to the church center, and without broadcasting any more about Scott Wiener’s notorious pursuit of nudes in San Francisco, the party was over by 2:05pm and everyone dressed and packed up. Lots of people on this busy intersection had both watched the nudes, snapped pictures of them, and smiled in support of the group’s aims. Russian Television had delegated Eric Louie to cover the event, and I, of course, did the same for the naturist press.
Leif Heilberg, June 2014
All photographs taken by Leif Heilberg, Viking Photography Inc., [email protected]
