The FBI may reportedly be unhappy about Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder’s naked dip in the Sea of Galilee, but the American Association for Nude Recreation gives him two — er … thumbs –– up.
The Kansas congressman came under fire this week after it was revealed that he jumped into the water without his clothes on during a fact-finding mission to the Holy land last summer.
In a Tuesday press release, AANR defended Yoder’s right to naked swimming, the Tampa Bay Times first reported. The group describes itself as an association that “advocates people should skinny-dip in appropriate settings like their own back yards, nudist resorts and clubs, legal nude beaches, etc.”
“Congressman Yoder is a typical American who enjoys skinny-dipping, like over 50 million other Americans,” AANR said in a press release, which cited several presidents, including George W. Bush, JFK and Teddy Roosevelt as being among the 25 percent of Americans who have skinny-dipped.
More than 80 House members were on the same 2011 trip Yoder took, and apparently things got a little bit boozy and a little bit naked — at least for him.
Several congressmen jumped into the sea after dinner one night, but Yoder was reportedly the only one who took the plunge in his birthday suit — which most likely led to an awkward breakfast the next morning. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who was on the trip but not involved in the swim, condoned Yoder’s behavior at the time.
While swimming itself is not illegal in the sea whose surface the Bible says Jesus Christ once skimmed in his sandals, naked swimming is frowned upon.
Yoder said in a statement this week, “A year ago, my wife, Brooke, and I joined colleagues for dinner at the Sea of Galilee in Israel. 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 may not be able to show his bare buttocks in Israel again, but the AANR generously provided a list of legal nude beaches in North America. The list includes places from sunny Florida to chilly Canada, which could one day become the land of congressional “sequestration.”