Florida has asked the Supreme Court to allow its law regulating drag shows to be enforced.
Drag shows have become an important issue across the country as the transgender movement presses for public and legal acceptance.
Politicians in various states have responded to parents’ concerns by passing laws that restrict sometimes explicit drag show performances in front of children and banning the use of women’s restrooms by men who identify as women.
Drag show advocates protest that laws restricting the performances violate constitutionally protected free speech.
Florida officials want the Court to narrow a lower court’s order blocking the Protection of Children Act, which prohibits “adult live performances” in front of children.
The dining establishment that obtained the injunction against the law had offered “family-friendly” drag performances on Sundays, which children were encouraged to attend.
The lower court injunction “inflicts irreparable harm on Florida and its children by purporting to erase from Florida’s statute books a law designed to prevent the exposure of children to sexually explicit live performances,” Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, a Republican, said in an emergency application filed with the Supreme Court.
“As long as the district court’s preliminary injunction remains in place, Florida is powerless to enforce a law its elected representatives have enacted for the protection of its children.”
The statute, enacted earlier this year, allows the state to suspend or revoke the licenses of a business and imposes financial penalties for knowingly allowing children to attend such events.
The law’s text does not mention drag shows specifically, but targets “any show, exhibition, or other presentation in front of a live audience which, in whole or in part, depicts or simulates nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or specific sexual activities.”
In June, Judge Gregory Presnell of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida granted a preliminary injunction blocking the law from being enforced anywhere in Florida. Judge Presnell was appointed in 2000 by President Bill Clinton.
The district court acted after finding it “likely” that the statute “could not survive strict scrutiny because it did not employ sufficient narrowly tailored means to further the state’s compelling interest in protecting minors from obscene performances,” the judge wrote in an order.
That court also found it “likely that the language of the Act, which included terms like ‘lewd conduct’ and ‘lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts,’ was unconstitutionally vague and overbroad on its face.”
The court acted to prevent Floridians from being “exposed to the chilling effect of this facially unconstitutional statute.”
On Oct. 11, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit voted 2-1 not to lift the injunction.
The petitioner, Melanie Griffin, is secretary of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. The respondent, HM Florida-ORC LLC, operates a Hamburger Mary’s restaurant and bar.
Following the adoption of the law, the restaurant began blocking children from attending drag shows on the premises. The restaurant claims business is down as a result of the law.
The restaurant argues the law infringes on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because it forbids protected speech based on the identity of the speaker and is too vague.
The emergency application was directed to Justice Clarence Thomas, who oversees urgent matters from Florida. Justice Thomas may make a ruling by himself or refer the case to the full Court.
On Oct. 25, Justice Thomas directed the respondent to file a reply by 5 p.m. on Nov. 2.
The lead attorney for the restaurant, Brice M. Timmons of Donati Law in Memphis, Tennessee, told The Epoch Times that the lower courts made correct rulings.
“We believe that the Eleventh Circuit and District Court correctly protected the right of citizens to free speech,” Mr. Timmons told The Epoch Times by email.
“It doesn’t seem like good public policy to waste tax dollars to try to strip small businesses of their licenses and further damage Florida’s economy. There are more important things to do. Anyone who has driven on roads in rural Florida can see that.”
The Epoch Times reached out to Ms. Moody’s office for comment but had not received a reply as of press time.
