We cheered last April when the folks who run the Gaea Retreat Center north of Tonganoxie finally prevailed over busybody neighbors who had instigated an all-out witch hunt against them. The 168-acre retreat had been a nudist center for forty years, then a Baptist Bible camp. In 1992, it became a place where not-so-mainstream campers could get back to nature. It operated in peace for a decade. But last fall, some Leavenworth County residents got all in a tizzy. After all, the camp's operators do host the Gaea Goddess Gathering, the Midwest Men's Naturist Enclave and Heartland Pagan Festival gatherings every year, and clothing is -- gasp -- optional in some areas. At county commission meetings, locals told county officials not to renew the camp's special-use permit. One farmer said he refused to allow his wife or kid to go in the cow pasture for fear of what they might see. Another neighbor claimed that 175 people cannot socialize together in the nude without screwing. Someone else alleged pedophilia and sodomy were happening at the camp -- he was sure of it. The brouhaha got national attention, spawning headlines like "Toil and Trouble" and "Naked Witches." The neighbors got their way, and the camp's operators had to sue and spend thousands of dollars on lawyer fees to defend their civil rights. But county commissioners finally renewed their permit, thank goddess.
