Protecting rugby fans from boobs (NSFW)

In this era of perpetually declining moral standards, it's hard-warming to see people sticking up for the scruples of decent, hard-hitting rugby players and their famously beer-guzzling fans.

This year, Auckland New Zealand is hosting the Rugby World Cup, a major event in the many parts of the world that care about that sport. The games happened to coincide with a controversial tradition: New Zealand's annual "Boobs on Bikes" parade, which has been held, on and off, for the past eight years.

The event is just as it sounds: topless women — some actual porn stars, others just non-professionals — ride on motorcycles, prominently displaying their mammary assets. Bystanders ogle and jockey for a better view, recording the action on cell phones and video cameras. Boobs on Bikes was first held in 2003, according to Wikipedia, after two women were arrested for being topless at a protest. It's been the subject of a high court ruling protecting its ability to exist, according to a New Zealand TV interview.

This year, the parade was to roll down Queen Street, one of the Auckland's main commercial thoroughfares. Liberation, the French newspaper, reported that the it would coincide with the Auckland-France rugby match. 

Family values campaigners were outraged. They called the event public porn, a threat to youth and to the dignity of New Zealand, and campaigned to have it halted.

Organizer Steve Crow, a former Auckland mayoral candidate and porn industry tycoon, told New Zealand TV that the event was just good clean fun. When asked if families might find the Boobs on Bikes parade offensive, he responded, that people are free to "turn away."

"Look I find organized religion offensive, but I don't try to stop it. It's a fact of life, it's there."

He cancelled the 2011 Boobs on Bikes after an Internet survey found that 68 percent of respondents disapproved of it, Liberation reported.