Judge issues blistering decision striking down Ron DeSantis' drag banThe judge was worried that the law would even ban "a gender-bending but chaste drag performance."
Link to Full ArticleLGBTQ Nation - Daniel Villarreal
Friday, May 16, 2025
An appeals court has issued another legal defeat against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' attempt to ban all-ages drag performances, calling the law overbroad and saying that it attempts to take a "shotgun" to constitutionally protected free speech rights.
This week, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a 2-1 decision against the law, effectively continuing a lower court's injunction against the law and sending it back down to Florida's Middle District to receive a full bench trial.
Appeals Court Judge Robin Rosenbaum wrote that the law's prohibition against "lewd conduct" was like a "prosecutorial skeleton key" that any state officials could use to ban speech that they consider obscene.
"Florida's S.B. 1438 takes an 'I know it when I see it' approach to regulating expression... The Act prohibits children's admission to 'live performances' that Florida considers obscene for minors. But by providing only vague guidance as to which performances it prohibits, the Act wields a shotgun when the First Amendment allows a scalpel at most."
... any concern about the law protecting children "rings hollow," seeing as state law "permits any minor to attend an R-rated film at a movie theater if accompanied by a parent or guardian." ---------------------------------
