Naked retreat: Not in Kansas Anymore. (Citings)."THE PAGAN COMMUNITY is convinced it's about religion, the gay and lesbian community is sure it's about sexuality, and the naturists are certain it's about nudity," someone named Clarity wrote in a letter to users of Camp Gaea, a controversial Kansas resort. "What's a poor naked pantheist pan·the·ism n. 1. A doctrine identifying the Deity with the universe and its phenomena. 2. Belief in and worship of all gods. pan faerie to do?" The "it" to which Clarity refers is Leavenworth County's refusal in November to renew a special-use permit for the resort, a 168-acre retreat in Tonganoxie, Kansas Tonganoxie is a city in Leavenworth County, Kansas, United States. The population was 2,728 at the 2000 census. Geography Tonganoxie is located at (39.108880, -95.086885)GR1. , that was once a church camp but now caters to pagans, gays, and nudists. Normally, the renewal of such a permit is a formality formality, in chemistry: see chemical equilibrium; concentration. . But Camp Gaea's neighbors petitioned the county to shut it down, which meant a unanimous vote was required to renew. Two of the county's three commissioners voted against the camp. "Traffic was the concern," says John Zoellner, planning director for Leavenworth County. "The types of individuals using the facility was a concern." Neighbor Beth Hecht was certainly concerned about both. "As a mother of two young children, everyone wants to raise their kids in a healthy and safe community, and they definitely don't fit the idea of that kind of community," Hecht told the Lawrence Journal-World The Lawrence Journal-World is a daily newspaper published in Lawrence, Kansas by The World Company.[1] The newspaper has been publishing since 1858. Notes 1. ^ Lawrence Journal-World: About us. Retrieved on 2007-04-27. . Such events as the Heartland Spirit and Heartland Pagan festivals The Heartland Pagan Festival is a yearly neopagan festival held near the Kansas City area, in McLouth, Kansas. Each year since 1986, neopagans from all over the American Midwest gather to celebrate their differences and their commonalities, and to teach about their diverse would cause several hundred cars to travel past Hecht's property. "When you have that volume of people coming around, it's just like having a stranger in your neighborhood," said Hecht. "It puts the community on edge not knowing who'd be coming in and out." Actually, it was knowing too much about who was coming in and out that bothered Hecht and other neighbors. The camp plans to file for an injunction in federal court against the permit denial, claiming it constitutes viewpoint discrimination and thus is prohibited by the First Amendment. The camp is also considering challenging the denial as an unconstitutional unconstitutional adj. referring to a statute, governmental conduct, court decision or private contract (such as a covenant which purports to limit transfer of real property only to Caucasians) which violate one or more provisions of the U. S. Constitution. regulatory taking Regulatory taking refers to a situation in which a government regulates a property to such a degree that the regulation effectively amounts to an exercise of the government's eminent domain power without actually divesting the property's owner of title to the property. . "I think they were probably going to sue us, last I heard," says Zoellner. "They have a significant investment in that site." |
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