18 States Ask Federal Court to Unblock TN Law that Protects Kids from ‘Drag’
CV NEWS FEED // Eighteen states filed an amicus curiae brief petitioning a federal court to rule in favor of a Tennesee law protecting kids from being exposed to lewd “drag” performances. A federal judge blocked the law in June.
As The Daily Wire reported, Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed the “Adult Entertainment Act”
in March that outlawed adult cabaret male or female impersonators from performing “nudity, sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence or sadomasochistic abuse” on public property. However, such “drag shows” could still occur in age-restricted venues under the law.
Three months later, Judge Tommy Parker of the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee blocked the law in response to a suit by Friends of George’s, a Memphis-based self-described “LGBTQ theatre company.”
Parker, a Republican, said the law violated “drag” groups’ freedom of speech and called it “unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad.”
According to The Daily Wire, the coalition of red and swing states challenging Parker’s decision are Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia. All have Republican attorneys general, and all except for Louisiana have Republican governors.
Leading the group’s effort is Republican South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, who remarked:
Protecting children from obscene and lewd behavior is not a new idea. We need to let kids be kids, and the state has legal authority to ensure their protection. I believe the Court wrongly ruled against the law, and I’m happy to lead a coalition of support for the law on appeal.
Also filing a brief in favor of the blocked Tennesee law was America First Legal, a conservative legal group led by Stephen Miller, who served as a senior advisor to the president during Trump’s entire presidency.
America First Legal Vice-President Gene Hamilton told The Daily Wire:
We are proud to stand with our friends in Tennessee in defense of innocent children, and in opposition to erroneous, sweeping court orders that misapply the law based on the urging of radical activists.
No child should ever be exposed to the conduct at issue in this case — ever — and it is our hope that the Sixth Circuit overturns the injunction in this case.
In mid-August, the legal group sued Democratic Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee to block the enforcement of S.B. 5599, which he signed in May. America First Legal deemed the pro-“trans” and pro-abortion law a “state-sanctioned kidnapping bill.”
Miller is widely known for being a driving force behind much of the Trump administration’s border security policy.
