The controversial law is now being challenged in federal court as an unconstitutional attempt to suppress the First Amendment rights of people who perform in drag.
I guess I don't see the issue. This is not kids' entertainment, but adult entertainment. Why the issue? There is a time and place for everything under the sun. This is neither the time nor the place if the behavior does not take into account that kids should not be exposed to the exposed.
One issue is that drag is not inherently "adult entertainment." It certainly can be. But it is often not (think: Mrs. Doubtfire or Kinky Boots). That's part of why a state can't just pass a law explicitly banning drag performances in front of anyone under the age of 18 any more than it could for any other form of general artistic expression. No court would uphold a law like that under the First Amendment.
Now, a state can absolutely pass a law restricting minor attendance at adult entertainment shows. But it has to do so in a precise way.
Instead, Florida used such a vague definition of adult entertainment that no one can be sure where the line is -- and that arguably gives state officials cover to do the kind of targeting that they would not have been permitted to do if they had tried to do so directly. This is partly why courts sometimes rule laws unconstitutional for vagueness.
And the constitutional concerns in this specific case are magnified when it turns out that one of the sponsors of the law really did want to target all drag shows.
I see so it is more the vagueness of the law than the spirit. In your article you mention that the law is only for exposer. Maybe I need to read it again. Thank you.
Don’t want your “kid” at a drag show? There’s an app for that! Get Life 360 and take responsibility for your kid’s whereabouts; don’t leave it to the government. Leave freedom alone and keep big government encroachment out of people’s lives. Also, government needs to keep its “God Uptighty” out of our lives. Separate Church and State! Freedom FROM religion is a First Amendment Right! Drag Show participants and attendants look like they’re enjoying and accepting their sexuality and bodies; they’re not the angry, self-loathing, self-and-body-hating misogynists of the Christian mythology tribe the GOP co-opted to use as a State Ideological Apparatus. Studies show sexually repressed cultures are violent cultures…. Make Love, Not War! Besides, homosexuality has been around for eons before The Church of Emperor Constantine Showed Up to Make the World in His Image, and Misery. Even monkeys masturbate. Sex is natural. Sex is part of human nature. Think Birds and Bees. Fertility happens for a reason. There’d be a lot less environmental and social destruction if humans got in touch with their bodies and feelings instead of guns!
Not bad as an argument. I still think these shows should not be slotted as family if they include exposure. If they are billed as adult entertainment and someone wants to take their child then it should be fine.
Hey, Gary! Thanks. I will never forget seeing Lady Gaga’s G-stringed rear end in my face with her videos my 9-year-old introduced to me one day way back when with all her hit songs. Poker Face— Kids learn about fellatio from a metaphoric song rather than from a sex ed class. Hmmm.. I think a 16 or 17-year-old is hardly a child. Heck, the GOP thinks this age group is a great source of child labor now! Hardly children, but workers in their $$$ eyes. Just don’t feel or become aware that you have a body. So much for the family! I graduated Colorado high school in 1984 and most friends I knew had sex by age 14, 16. Several girls were teenage moms before they even graduated high school. I helped a Catholic friend get an abortion at age 16. She didn’t want her parents to know. I was an anomaly to lose my virginity at 18. Read the March 2007 issue of Scientific American Mind and you will see just how many rights US teens have lost in the past 100 years. Why? Because dependent “children” who can’t do for themselves are a huge market. Backwards-capped boys who never become men or think for themselves make great consumers. A nanny state will come protect and choose for them in an ambiguous world, they learn. Isn’t that what this odious law is all about? It’s a law infused with unconstitutional religious overreach by a dysfunctional mythology obsessed with negative views of sex. Dominator culture that the State has used for millenniums to stay in power and on top uses an artificially contrived religious hatred of sex, women, nature and fertility to scare the hell out of people rather than align them with a natural order in partnership. Men in ties that choke their heads off from their hearts and generative anatomy wander a scorched, abused earth wagging their frustrated, serpentine tongues to incite hatred and violence by projecting their rejected human sexual selves onto others. That’s the rotten fruit their trees produce. Besides, just what is “adult entertainment?” Lawrence Welk? Pornography is a First Amendment right because it’s educational, the US Supreme Court ruled. I prefer the erotic over pornography because sex is sacred, not obscene, and a mysterious ritual. Too much graphic ruins it, IMHO, but people have the freedom to look at it if they want. Read The Disappearance of Rituals by Byung-Chul Han to learn more. Really the GOP takes prosthetic breasts and penises way too seriously. They need to lighten up. Laugh at life. Think bawdy comedy and Shakespeare, even early Kabuki theatre was sexual, why the women priests who performed it were banned from the stage to this day. (Those gloomy, patriarchal Buddhists who showed up in Japan in the 6th century with their life is suffering.) I homeschooled my kids. They are now successful autodidacts. If I wanted to take my kids on a field trip to study Florida Drag Queens as part of their sex ed or sociology studies, my parental rights and freedoms are now infringed upon by a religious sexually repressed culture that has infiltrated the State and who have a hard time with “adult entertainment,” and make censorship laws against a targeted group. (Hitler did the same thing. He started persecuting political opponents, then gays, then Jews…. Who is next? YOU?) Besides, why is sex considered obscene? Loving, caring, feeling human relationships are sorely needed in our modern alienated and artificial world. let’s teach that. Now I know why the book about Seahorses was banned… can’t have a caring, feeling male! Nobody would sign up for the military. But why isn’t violence considered obscenity? It’s disturbing the darkness of TV, Film and Video Games these days. Call of Duty, Halo, mass murder is fun! Kids learn. In reality with today’s wars raging around the world and in our schools and neighborhoods, would society rather have someone flash their breasts or pull out a machine gun and start killing everyone? The US Supreme Court ruled the latter; that it’s ok for a kid to mutilate a woman in a video game, but not see her naked. How messed up is that? If kids had sex ed early on, they can learn to self pleasure without the nonsense of “religious” guilt (neurosis and pain are pleasurable to the religious, apparently, read Riane Eisler’s Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth and the Politics of the Body.) to release frustration rather than reach for a gun and shoot somebody dead over a pickle. My first boyfriend in high school was gay, I learned years later after he broke up with me. If only he could have been himself and been gay then, learned about it in a sex ed class early on instead of pretending to be straight, a lot of heart break could’ve been avoided. Let’s Separate Church and State so we can have the freedom The First Amendment guarantees. Let’s keep religious discussion about sex in the mythology department, not on the law books. Let’s keep discussion about good, consensual healthy sex in the health and healing department. “Everybody says sex is obscene. The only true obscenity is war.” - Henry Miller. “Love one another.” — Jesus
What about a performance from a cover band for KISS, the rock band legend? For those too young to recall, it was 4 guys dressed up to the hilt, high heels, tight pants, make-up, lipstick, you name it. Does that fall under this stupid law? Snowflakes in the Republican Party, get a grip already and maybe focus your attention crafting a HANDS FREE CELL PHONE LAW IN FLORIDA........FOR CHRISTS SAKE!!!
Rep Fine also rallied his supporters against “ government - sponsored child grooming activities” at Drag Story Hour in an effort to defund Space Coast Pride’s county/cultural grant. It almost worked…fortunately the county commissioners came to their senses after defunding ALL the cultural grants(afraid to deal with the issue/probable lawsuit) ) and reversed the vote to restore all 25 grants.
“Fine said he did not remember proposing the amendment, so he could not say why he ultimately chose not to pursue it.” 🤥
I'm just so pissed these Republicans are at the helm. They make me sick! You know exactly what they are doing, and if they don't like the group you associate with they will eventually craft vague laws to target them. The people of Florida must wake up and realize that while they shine lights on these concerns for Ron's base, your homeowners insurance, auto and land rights are being trashed daily!!
Jason, thanks for providing these excellent pieces of REAL journalism. It's well worth the monthly donation! Keep it up and never let them off the hook!
I guess I don't see the issue. This is not kids' entertainment, but adult entertainment. Why the issue? There is a time and place for everything under the sun. This is neither the time nor the place if the behavior does not take into account that kids should not be exposed to the exposed.
One issue is that drag is not inherently "adult entertainment." It certainly can be. But it is often not (think: Mrs. Doubtfire or Kinky Boots). That's part of why a state can't just pass a law explicitly banning drag performances in front of anyone under the age of 18 any more than it could for any other form of general artistic expression. No court would uphold a law like that under the First Amendment.
Now, a state can absolutely pass a law restricting minor attendance at adult entertainment shows. But it has to do so in a precise way.
Instead, Florida used such a vague definition of adult entertainment that no one can be sure where the line is -- and that arguably gives state officials cover to do the kind of targeting that they would not have been permitted to do if they had tried to do so directly. This is partly why courts sometimes rule laws unconstitutional for vagueness.
And the constitutional concerns in this specific case are magnified when it turns out that one of the sponsors of the law really did want to target all drag shows.
I see so it is more the vagueness of the law than the spirit. In your article you mention that the law is only for exposer. Maybe I need to read it again. Thank you.
Don’t want your “kid” at a drag show? There’s an app for that! Get Life 360 and take responsibility for your kid’s whereabouts; don’t leave it to the government. Leave freedom alone and keep big government encroachment out of people’s lives. Also, government needs to keep its “God Uptighty” out of our lives. Separate Church and State! Freedom FROM religion is a First Amendment Right! Drag Show participants and attendants look like they’re enjoying and accepting their sexuality and bodies; they’re not the angry, self-loathing, self-and-body-hating misogynists of the Christian mythology tribe the GOP co-opted to use as a State Ideological Apparatus. Studies show sexually repressed cultures are violent cultures…. Make Love, Not War! Besides, homosexuality has been around for eons before The Church of Emperor Constantine Showed Up to Make the World in His Image, and Misery. Even monkeys masturbate. Sex is natural. Sex is part of human nature. Think Birds and Bees. Fertility happens for a reason. There’d be a lot less environmental and social destruction if humans got in touch with their bodies and feelings instead of guns!
Not bad as an argument. I still think these shows should not be slotted as family if they include exposure. If they are billed as adult entertainment and someone wants to take their child then it should be fine.
Hey, Gary! Thanks. I will never forget seeing Lady Gaga’s G-stringed rear end in my face with her videos my 9-year-old introduced to me one day way back when with all her hit songs. Poker Face— Kids learn about fellatio from a metaphoric song rather than from a sex ed class. Hmmm.. I think a 16 or 17-year-old is hardly a child. Heck, the GOP thinks this age group is a great source of child labor now! Hardly children, but workers in their $$$ eyes. Just don’t feel or become aware that you have a body. So much for the family! I graduated Colorado high school in 1984 and most friends I knew had sex by age 14, 16. Several girls were teenage moms before they even graduated high school. I helped a Catholic friend get an abortion at age 16. She didn’t want her parents to know. I was an anomaly to lose my virginity at 18. Read the March 2007 issue of Scientific American Mind and you will see just how many rights US teens have lost in the past 100 years. Why? Because dependent “children” who can’t do for themselves are a huge market. Backwards-capped boys who never become men or think for themselves make great consumers. A nanny state will come protect and choose for them in an ambiguous world, they learn. Isn’t that what this odious law is all about? It’s a law infused with unconstitutional religious overreach by a dysfunctional mythology obsessed with negative views of sex. Dominator culture that the State has used for millenniums to stay in power and on top uses an artificially contrived religious hatred of sex, women, nature and fertility to scare the hell out of people rather than align them with a natural order in partnership. Men in ties that choke their heads off from their hearts and generative anatomy wander a scorched, abused earth wagging their frustrated, serpentine tongues to incite hatred and violence by projecting their rejected human sexual selves onto others. That’s the rotten fruit their trees produce. Besides, just what is “adult entertainment?” Lawrence Welk? Pornography is a First Amendment right because it’s educational, the US Supreme Court ruled. I prefer the erotic over pornography because sex is sacred, not obscene, and a mysterious ritual. Too much graphic ruins it, IMHO, but people have the freedom to look at it if they want. Read The Disappearance of Rituals by Byung-Chul Han to learn more. Really the GOP takes prosthetic breasts and penises way too seriously. They need to lighten up. Laugh at life. Think bawdy comedy and Shakespeare, even early Kabuki theatre was sexual, why the women priests who performed it were banned from the stage to this day. (Those gloomy, patriarchal Buddhists who showed up in Japan in the 6th century with their life is suffering.) I homeschooled my kids. They are now successful autodidacts. If I wanted to take my kids on a field trip to study Florida Drag Queens as part of their sex ed or sociology studies, my parental rights and freedoms are now infringed upon by a religious sexually repressed culture that has infiltrated the State and who have a hard time with “adult entertainment,” and make censorship laws against a targeted group. (Hitler did the same thing. He started persecuting political opponents, then gays, then Jews…. Who is next? YOU?) Besides, why is sex considered obscene? Loving, caring, feeling human relationships are sorely needed in our modern alienated and artificial world. let’s teach that. Now I know why the book about Seahorses was banned… can’t have a caring, feeling male! Nobody would sign up for the military. But why isn’t violence considered obscenity? It’s disturbing the darkness of TV, Film and Video Games these days. Call of Duty, Halo, mass murder is fun! Kids learn. In reality with today’s wars raging around the world and in our schools and neighborhoods, would society rather have someone flash their breasts or pull out a machine gun and start killing everyone? The US Supreme Court ruled the latter; that it’s ok for a kid to mutilate a woman in a video game, but not see her naked. How messed up is that? If kids had sex ed early on, they can learn to self pleasure without the nonsense of “religious” guilt (neurosis and pain are pleasurable to the religious, apparently, read Riane Eisler’s Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth and the Politics of the Body.) to release frustration rather than reach for a gun and shoot somebody dead over a pickle. My first boyfriend in high school was gay, I learned years later after he broke up with me. If only he could have been himself and been gay then, learned about it in a sex ed class early on instead of pretending to be straight, a lot of heart break could’ve been avoided. Let’s Separate Church and State so we can have the freedom The First Amendment guarantees. Let’s keep religious discussion about sex in the mythology department, not on the law books. Let’s keep discussion about good, consensual healthy sex in the health and healing department. “Everybody says sex is obscene. The only true obscenity is war.” - Henry Miller. “Love one another.” — Jesus
What about a performance from a cover band for KISS, the rock band legend? For those too young to recall, it was 4 guys dressed up to the hilt, high heels, tight pants, make-up, lipstick, you name it. Does that fall under this stupid law? Snowflakes in the Republican Party, get a grip already and maybe focus your attention crafting a HANDS FREE CELL PHONE LAW IN FLORIDA........FOR CHRISTS SAKE!!!
As far as I know no cover band has ever exposed their genitalia, fake or real, at a family show… at least one that I have seen.
Rep Fine also rallied his supporters against “ government - sponsored child grooming activities” at Drag Story Hour in an effort to defund Space Coast Pride’s county/cultural grant. It almost worked…fortunately the county commissioners came to their senses after defunding ALL the cultural grants(afraid to deal with the issue/probable lawsuit) ) and reversed the vote to restore all 25 grants.
“Fine said he did not remember proposing the amendment, so he could not say why he ultimately chose not to pursue it.” 🤥
Shocking that Fine couldn’t even remember proposing the amendment. He is inept and needs to resign.
I'm just so pissed these Republicans are at the helm. They make me sick! You know exactly what they are doing, and if they don't like the group you associate with they will eventually craft vague laws to target them. The people of Florida must wake up and realize that while they shine lights on these concerns for Ron's base, your homeowners insurance, auto and land rights are being trashed daily!!
Fine is TOTALLY consistent in not caring about constitutional requirements except when it suits him!
Fine is a ginormous BLOWHARD
Jason, thanks for providing these excellent pieces of REAL journalism. It's well worth the monthly donation! Keep it up and never let them off the hook!