By Ana Go\u00f1i-Lessan and Gray Rohrer, The News Service of Florida <\/p>\n
A federal appeals court Tuesday determined Florida\u2019s law banning children from drag shows is constitutional, tossing aside an earlier ruling that found it violated the First Amendment.<\/p>\n
The ruling is a win for Gov. Ron DeSantis, who\u00a0pushed for the measure in 2023, passing through the Legislature on party-line votes, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed.<\/p>\n
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals initially knocked the law down, but DeSantis appealed, asking for the full court to review the decision.<\/p>\n
In an 8-5 ruling, the court found Hamburger Mary\u2019s, an Orlando-area restaurant that frequently features drag performances and brought the lawsuit, \u201cfailed to establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis shouldn\u2019t even be controversial, yet our law protecting kids required us to fend off lawsuits and win a case before a divided appellate court,\u201d DeSantis posted on X.<\/p>\n
The law\u00a0defines\u00a0\u201cadult live performance\u201d as a live show that \u201cdepicts or simulates\u00a0nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or specific sexual activities,\u201d as defined under state law, as well as \u201clewd conduct\u201d or the \u201clewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamburger Mary\u2019s argued the law was too broad and infringed on its First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, but the majority of the court disagreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Supreme Court of Florida\u2019s\u00a0definition of \u2018lewd\u2019 eliminates any overbreadth, and the use of the\u00a0phrase \u2018age of the child present\u2019 does not render the Act unconstitutionally vague. Accordingly, we vacate the district court\u2019s preliminary injunction in its entirety,\u201d wrote Judge Andrew Brasher.<\/p>\n
Brasher was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2020.<\/p>\n
In response to the ruling, Qommittee, a national group formed in 2024 to support drag performers facing censorship and threats, updated its guide for Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlorida\u2019s anti-drag law is in effect but drag is NOT banned in Florida. Even if your show is legal (and most are), you could be wrongfully targeted,\u201d the guide states. \u201cDon\u2019t stop performing, but protect yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Republicans, though, declared victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cGovernor Ron DeSantis and Republicans in the Florida Legislature stood firm from day one: the innocence of our children is not negotiable,\u201d Republican Party of Florida Chairman Evan Power said in a released statement. He is also running for a U.S. House seat in a district in the Panhandle.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlorida will continue to lead,\u201d he added. \u201cWe will not apologize for putting kids first. The Florida GOP fully supports this law and every effort to keep sexually explicit material away from minors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ana Go\u00f1i-Lessan and Gray Rohrer, The News Service of Florida A federal appeals court Tuesday determined Florida\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-363679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}