Country singer Darryl Worley has been known as a regular guy, a straight arrow whose music is appropriate for a family audience. That's why SCERA invited him to participate this coming Tuesday in a Pioneer Day-themed event with military tributes.

The military angle seemed especially appropriate because Worley has been an outspoken supporter of the troops in recent years through his music, from post-9/11 anthem "Have You Forgotten" to a top-selling single, "I Miss My Friend."

"He's a very down-to-earth guy," said Kayla Turner of country music station 101.5 The Eagle. "He sings songs that are full of emotion. He can put into words what everybody feels."

So it came as something of a shock to SCERA, months after the deal was made, to find that Worley had posed nude for the July issue of Playgirl magazine. Turns out he was just tired of his squeaky-clean image and wanted to "stir it up a little bit."

"I got in a groove where people thought of me as a clean, pristine All-American perfect guy, and that's not who I am," Worley told a Nashville newspaper.

At 6-foot-6, Worley, the son of a Tennessee minister, was an athlete until an injury changed his direction in life. He taught high school biology before launching his music career.

Now, we will admit that any 42-year-old man who can still flaunt his physique in a women's sex magazine probably deserves some credit, though you'd think he ought to have outgrown such puerile pursuits. This says something about Worley's maturity.

At the same time, we commend SCERA president and CEO Adam Robertson for responding like a grown-up. The show will go on. Robertson was understandably unhappy about the news of Worley because he doesn't want anything to reflect badly on the SCERA and it's family-oriented mission.

It won't.

We'd just like to hear Worley's music.

SCERA had no way of knowing about Worley's naked ambitions, and they should not have mattered anyway. Big-name entertainers should not be locked out of Utah Valley just because the artist might have done something that could be deemed offensive to a straight-laced somebody.

If that were true, we'd have to ban Harry Potter movies -- including the one currently playing at the SCERA -- because its star, Daniel Radcliffe, appeared nude night after night earlier this year in the stage play "Equus."

We'd have to ban "Mary Poppins," "The Sound of Music" and "The Princess Diaries" because squeaky-clean Julie Andrews appeared topless in the 1981 movie "S.O.B."

And -- oh, yes -- we would have to keep Elton John out of BYU's Marriott Center, where he played in 1984; ban Ozzy Osbourne, The Prince of Darkness, from playing at the McKay Events Center; reject Toby Keith, the notorious party-boy who headlined Stadium of Fire in 2002; and shield ourselves from Willie Nelson, minstrel of marijuana, who plays at Sundance every decade or so.

The silliness of Worley's posing for Playgirl is exceeded only by statements like this one from Stephen Graham, the self-appointed guardian of local values from the nonprofit Standard of Liberty organization. Graham told the Herald:

"If someone is coming to our community and has demonstrated that they don't hold to our community standards then we have the right and should shun them, and not invite them to our community."

We are more horrified by such expressions of local zealotry than by Worley's bare behind. Such Puritan pronouncements do not project a positive image of the Utah Valley community as a whole.

SCERA'S Robertson has a better idea: "We welcome diverse people from all over. I wish people wouldn't do some of the things they do, but we're going to welcome them with courtesy." About Tuesday, he said, "We just want to pay tribute to the troops and Pioneer Day."

Worley's music is uplifting. It will only add to the show as we reflect upon those who have made significant contributions to our community and nation.

Orem Mayor Jerry Washburn hit the nail on the head:

"We anticipate that it will be a very professional show, that it will be appropriate and it will be according to the high standard that SCERA has always demanded for the community," Washburn told a Herald reporter.

"I do have a great deal of confidence in the quality of performances that SCERA has brought in over the years. I think this will be no different."

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A5.