Texas is now allowed to ban drag shows in public or when children are present, a federal appeals court has ruled.
The ruling said the state can enforce a 2023 law prohibiting such performances, which have drawn much controversy, not just in Texas but across the nation, Fox News reported Saturday.
“Senate Bill 12 bans drag performers from dancing suggestively or wearing certain prosthetics on public property or in front of children. Business owners could face a $10,000 fine for hosting these performances, and performers who violate the law could be slapped with a Class A misdemeanor,” the outlet said.
In March, leaders of Texas A&M University banned drag shows and told campus presidents to cancel upcoming drag shows, per Breitbart News.
Video footage shows a drag queen in Lockhart, Texas, dancing on a stage and others reading to children and adults:
In regard to the three-judge panel in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unblocking the law and handing it back to the district court, the Associated Press (AP) reported Friday:
As part of the ruling, the panel found that most of the plaintiffs — a drag performer, a drag production company and pride groups — failed to show that they intended to conduct a “sexually oriented performance,” and therefore, could not be harmed by the law. The ruling suggests that the federal judges don’t believe all drag shows are sexually explicit.
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SB 12 considers a performance to be sexually oriented if the performer is nude or engages in sexual conduct, which could include “actual contact or simulated contact” between one person and another person’s “buttocks, breast, or any part of the genitals.” It also has to “appeal to the prurient interest in sex” — and most didn’t meet this criteria, according to the appeals court’s ruling.
In April, Breitbart News reported that a second bill, SB 1601, would end state funding for libraries that host drag queen performances.
“In one instance, the Houston Public Library hosted a registered sex offender to read to young children at a drag queen story hour,” the article read.
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