Anti-drag show bill passes full Senate, awaits further House action

Blistering Democratic opposition couldn’t stop legislation that criminalizes allowing minors into adult shows with “lewd” content from winning Senate approval.

The Senate legislation, advancing on a 28-12 party-line vote, doesn’t mention “drag shows.” But (SB 1438) that Clay Yarborough, sponsored, is largely aimed at stopping children from attending those shows.

It authorizes state government officials within the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) to suspend or revoke the liquor license of any establishment that admits minors to a live, adult performance.

Prohibited performances would be those that include “lewd conduct, or the lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts,” meant to appeal to “prurient, shameful, or morbid interests,” and displays that are patently offensive and “without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for the age of the child present.”

A person who admits a child to such a performance, as the bill defines it, would face a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to $1,000 in fines and up to a year in prison.

The legislation next advances to the House.

Yarborough has explained he wants “kids to be allowed to be kids,” with this law, but Democrats say children are already protected under existing statute from inappropriate material and that this legislation is going to result in more “harm, hurt and hate” against the transgender community.

It’s already happened, Democrats said, many of them citing Republican Rep. Webster Barnaby’s tirade in a House committee Monday labeling transgender individuals as mutants, devils and imps.

“To have a lawmaker say something so vile, and so hurtful and so painful about any group of people … I don’t go for that,” said Sen. Rosalind Osgood, who said she was changing her committee vote that she had cast for the bill in the interest of protecting children.

Yarborough, in his close, condemned Barnaby’s comments, but said the bill is akin to the plastic, electric outlet plugs he puts in to keep his 4-year-old safe.

“I believe it’s harmful for children,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to get my son away from the plug because I didn’t want him to have fun or enjoy himself … but we know the danger there. … We are protecting children who cannot unsee or unexperience things which they are exposed to.”

Critics have said the prohibitions are too vague. Some in committee raised the question of whether it would prohibit children at a Hooters restaurant with scantily clad servers singing “Happy Birthday.” Others have said that even though it doesn’t mention drag shows, it’s going to create an atmosphere that limits freedom of expression and leads to bullying against transgender people.

An amendment added as the full Senate prepped the bill for final Senate passage had one Wilton Manors City Commissioner raising the alarm that city officials who grant permits for the city’s iconic street festivals could be arrested. The city’s annual June pride event and Halloween street festival have involved drag queen performances.

Sen. Tina Polsky slammed the bill as “a waste of time” and the “height of hypocrisy” from a Legislature that has passed numerous bills in the name of “parental rights.”

“Why does a person dressed in a costume of the other sex scare you so much?” she asked rhetorically.

This anti-transgender movement has already resulted in Barnaby’s speech that could result in real harm, Polsky said.

“This bill feeds into that kind of dangerous rhetoric, and it will lead to violence,” the Boca Raton Democrat said. “Here is yet another example of big government going too far to take away our freedom. There’s no other way to describe it.”

No Republican other than Yarborough spoke in favor of the bill during the Senate debate.

Republican Rep. Randy Fine is sponsoring similar legislation (HB 1423) in the House. That bill awaits its second hearing before a House subcommittee.