A district judge is expected to rule next week on a couple's suit to throw out a rule blocking them from taking their children to the state's only government-maintained nude park.
The Associated Press says Bob and Christine Morton often went to Hippie Hollow Park with their three children until Travis County closed the waterfront park to those under 18. The Mortons sued to reverse that ruling four years ago.
"It's been an enormously long road," says 19-year-old Robert Morton III, who was 14 when his family filed the lawsuit. "I've been waiting around for this case to come around to some kind of verdict that the law no longer applies to me. That four or five years of my life I couldn't go to Hippie Hollow was a pretty big cheat."
The Mortons and their children - Robert III, Charles (12), and Becky (16) - think there's more than just stripping them of family time at this Lake Travis spot - they say the government is stripping them of their Constitutional rights, including privacy and freedom of expression.
"It's not just important to us for our own sake to get to use the park," says the younger Morton to the Associated Press. "First all, we feel violated in principle. They are essentially telling our parents how they should raise me and my brother and sister."
His father says parental rights is a key issue. "Who is the county to come in and say they don't wish it?" the elder Morton says to the AP. "The county is saying there's something wrong with the way of life we've chosen, which there's nothing illegal about."
But Travis County and the Lower Colorado River Authority say this isn't about parental rights but child protection. "My understanding about the suit is that the purpose of the rule really is to protect children from exposure to really deviant sexual acts that occur at the park," LCRA lawyer James Rader tells the AP.
The Mortons, though, say the authorities are associating nudism unfairly with sexual wrongdoing because they don't understand "naturism," promoting "healthy, wholesome attitudes about nudity and the human body."
