10 Places Rep. Yoder Could Have Skinny-Dipped Without A Fuss

Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS) is in hot water for a vacation he took with GOP colleagues and families in Israel last year: After a night of fun, Yoder stripped down to the bare nakedness and skinny-dipped in the holy waters of the Sea of Galilee.

“After dinner I followed some Members of Congress in a spontaneous and very brief dive into the sea and regrettably I jumped into the water without a swimsuit,” Yoder told Politico. “[For] any embarrassment I have caused for my colleagues and constituents, I apologize.”We don’t think Yoder did anything particularly wrong. Tacky, maybe—the Sea of Galilee (actually a lake) is a Christian holy site where Jesus supposedly walked on water—but nothing worthy of an FBI investigation. It was, after all, a privately funded excursion.

The American Association for Nude Recreation doesn’t think Yoder did anything wrong either: “The U.S. has a long history of political skinny dippers: President Johnson even went skinny-dipping while in office with evangelist Billy Graham,” says AANR spokeswoman Carolyn Hawkins. “Heck, prior to the mid-1800s, most everyone skinny-dipped — swimwear hadn’t been invented.

Hawkins does chide Yoder for dropping trou where it wasn’t allowed and suggests next time he trek to Tel-Baruch beach near Tel-Aviv, where nude sunbathing is the norm.

In the spirit of celebrating skinny-dipping, we thought it would be a good time to trot out GayCities’ roundup of the best nude beaches on Earth, including San Diego’s Black Beach, Herring Cove in P-Town and Capetown’s Sandy Bay.

Click through to see GayCities’ 2012 list of the world’s 10 best nude beaches.

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By: Dan Avery
On: Aug 21, 2012
Tagged: beaches, best nude beaches, clothing optional, Gaycities, Israel, Kevin Yoder, naturalists, nude beaches, Republicans, Sea of Galilee, Vacation

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5 Comments

No. 1 · Aidan8
We’ve gone down the rabbit hole folks. It’s now morally wrong, something to apologize for, to swim naked. Bat-shit-crazy-fundamentalist-christo-fascist-bullshit is warping everything. May the gods help us.

Aug 21, 2012 at 10:05 pm · @Reply ·
No. 2 · FStratford
Makes sense he Pologizes. Republicans don’t like nakedness.

Aug 22, 2012 at 1:00 am · @Reply ·
No. 3 · jack512
What is holy about the water of the Sea of Galilee? If you actually believe that Jesus walked on water there you should rid yourself of that ancient religious myth and join the 21st century.

Aug 22, 2012 at 2:25 am · @Reply ·
No. 4 · Cam
So now they are against contraception and nudity as well.

Could the right wing just admit that they want the U.S. to become Saudi Arabia with complete religious control over our every day lives and get it over with?

Aug 22, 2012 at 10:17 am · @Reply ·
No. 5 · D9W
My god! It sound like the Republicans are trying to push Christian Sharia law on America. Next we are all going to have wear Utah approved Burkas (when we go swimming).

Aug 23, 2012 at 12:25 pm · @Reply ·