VANCOUVER, B.C., August 12, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – When homosexual news service Daily Xtra reported last week that both Vancouver police and city officials “confirmed they had no issues with public nudity” at the city’s annual gay Pride Parade, LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) deemed necessary a fact check with the guardians of law and order.
Canada’s Criminal Code makes it illegal to be nude in a “public place.” Section 174 states that a person who is “so clad as to offend against public decency or order” is “guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.”
While reports about this year’s August 4 gay parade mention only “scantily-clad revellers” and “skimpy attire,” last year’s parade was attended by a group of men called Foreskin who exposed their genitals in the city streets (WARNING: link includes graphic full-frontal male nudity).
LifeSiteNews asked the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) by email if it would uphold Section 174 of the Code if it witnessed explicit nudity at a public event such as the Pride Parade.
The VDP replied: “unfortunately your question cannot be answered with the simple yes or no answer that you appear to be looking for.”
“There are many ways to resolve or handle individuals and situations that are illegal. That may or may not include arrest,” wrote Constable Brian Montague, media relations officer.
LSN pressed the question, asking how the VPD handles the illegal situation of nude persons at public events such as the 2012 Pride Parade. The VPD did not reply.
LSN then approached Mayor Gregor Robertson, asking him if Daily Xtra’s statement was accurate.
The mayor’s office responded that the mayor had attended the Pride Parade and had hailed the event as a “remarkable celebration of equality, diversity, and the contributions of Vancouver’s LGBTTQ community.”
Touching on the question of upholding Canadian law against nudity, the mayor’s office said: “The Mayor did not receive or hear of any complaints regarding public nudity on the day of the parade, and the Mayor’s office has received no such complaints in the days since.”
Pro-homosexual Vancouver Sun columnist Shelley Fralic slammed last year’s parade as an “X-rated public peep show” run by officials according to a “double standard”.
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“When, exactly, did nudity become the new normal? And why is it okay for all of the above to take place in public, where such behaviour more commonly lands one in front of a judge?”
“How is it that a man can expose himself in a public park and, quite rightly, get his a** hauled off to jail but a coterie of rainbow-bright lads and lassies with dangling participles bumping and grinding on Denman Street is considered family fun?”
“Keep your pants on, people,” she said. “Yes, all you people prancing about in public with perplexing impunity from legal or etiquette censure, gyrating on floats in your manties with your dangling bits flopping about, or spreading your fleshy naked derrières on bicycle seats, or threatening to crowd the courthouse steps with your foreskins flopping about as if desperately seeking a safe haven.”
At the time, Fralic questioned the “double standard” employed by officials when it comes to the Pride Parade.
“If one can't saunter nude through the Metrotown food court – and good Lord, please don't – without security taking exception, why are naked parade participants now routinely given civic licence to conduct X-rated public peep shows?”
She called it “especially odd” that a “rights movement as serious as the LGBT one” would choose “sexually explicit caricature as a business card for what is arguably their most high-profile public relations blitz.”
Contact information:
Mayor Gregor Robertson
3rd Floor, City Hall
453 West 12th Ave
Vancouver, BC V5Y 1V4
Phone: 604-873-7621
Email: [email protected]
Vancouver Police Department
3585 Graveley St.
Vancouver, B.C.
Canada V5K 5J5
Phone: (604) 717-3321
Email: [email protected]