Ron DeSantis takes his drag ban to the U.S. Supreme Court

On Tuesday, the DeSantis administration’s obsession with “lewd exposure” and “prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts” made it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Florida’s solicitor general filed an emergency request to narrow the scope of a district court ruling that blocked the Republican-led state’s notorious ban on drag performance, formally known as the Protection of Children Act.

Related:

200,000 people showed up for Orlando Pride in defiant middle finger to Ron DeSantis

An 11-year-old transgender girl was the parade Grand Marshal.

Justice Clarence Thomas will hear the request.

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In a 167-page filing defending the legislation, signed into law in May by DeSantis and blocked by the district court in June, Solicitor General Henry Whitaker claimed the state was now “powerless to enforce a law its elected representatives have enacted for the protection of its children.”

The ban allows the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation to revoke the business licenses of any venues that allow minors to see drag performances, even if their parents consent, as well as issue $5,000 and $10,000 fines against the business. Anyone who violates the law can be charged with a criminal misdemeanor.

Days after DeSantis signed the bill into law, restaurant and bar Hamburger Mary’s in Orlando, well-known for their drag-attired waitstaff, sued over the legislation.

In June, U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell temporarily blocked the ban in anticipation of a trial, writing that the Protection of Children Act posed a threat to constitutionally protected free speech.

“The state claims that this statute seeks to protect children generally from obscene live performances. However, as explained [in court filings], Florida already has statutes that provide such protection.”

Florida is now asking the Supreme Court to allow it to partially enforce the ban, arguing for the ability to prosecute any business or venue it deems to be in violation of the law, other than Hamburger Mary’s.

Two weeks ago, the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court ruling and affirmed the injunction would apply to the entire state.

The 11th Circuit wrote of the ban, “There is a potential for extraordinary harm and a serious chill upon protected speech” if left in effect.

That assertion has been borne out as threats of enforcement in the state led to self-censorship at previously scheduled Pride celebrations and drag events, even as others have marched in drag in defiance.  

“No prosecutions have yet been undertaken under the law,” the court wrote, “so none will be disrupted if the injunction stands. Further, if the injunction is upheld, the government in the interim can enforce obscenity laws already on the books.”

Yet the DeSantis administration remains determined to prosecute.

“Hamburger Mary’s has not alleged, much less proven, that application of the Protection of Children Act to others in the State of Florida will cause actual or imminent injury to Hamburger Mary’s itself,” the state wrote in the emergency appeal. “It was a serious error for the district court nonetheless to enjoin the statute as it may apply to the rest of the world.”

DeSantis has signed a slew of anti-LGBTQ+ bills since announcing his run for the Republican nomination for president, including a ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth, an expanded version of his signature “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, and bills that have led Florida schools and libraries to purge LGBTQ+ content from shelves.