Ohio anti-abortion leader: Ban public nudity, breastfeeding because boobs promote Gay Pride

A prominent pro-life activist has called to ban all public nudity because he said that topless dancers who protested at his church had committed an "offense to God."

At least six bare-breasted women and other supporters of the Foxhole North club marched in front of the New Beginnings Ministries church in Warsaw earlier this month after the church spent nine years coming to their club to protest nudity.

Dr. Patrick Johnson, who is director of the anti-abortion group Personhood Ohio, responded to the protests by asking Ohioans to call the legislature in support of banning "all public nudity in the state," according to WSYX.

"I am sick that women can legally bare their breasts to children and to married men against their will in Ohio," he wrote on his Facebook page following last week's protest.

Johnson told WSYX that "what they did was an offense to God, was an offense to the public morality, and the legislature should act to criminalize what they did."

He also argued that women with exposed breasts were the reason that Ohio's Gay Pride parade was so popular.

"The gay pride parade in Columbus is 500,000 strong - why? Because the women go topless," he insisted on Facebook. "This is the only one where I've seen this level of nudity. San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C. I have never seen the kind of public lewdness I have seen in Columbus, Ohio."

On Sunday, the Aiken Area Progressive blog pointed out that a ban on all public nudity would also outlaw breastfeeding in public places.

"This is a no-exceptions ban that if enacted, will drop the number of states to 49 in which breastfeeding is legal, and, if enacted, this definitely will violate numerous Constitutional amendments, including the First, 13th and 14th amendments," the blog observed. "We strongly urge Ohioans to contact their lawmakers and tell them to oppose any attempt to ban public nudity and instead demand that state legislators exempt nudity from Ohio indecent exposure laws."

It is not currently against the law for women to be topless in public in Ohio.

Watch the video below from WSYX, broadcast Aug. 12, 2014.