A federal judge rules that Tennessee’s law restricting drag performances in public or where children were present is unconstitutional.
in public or where children were present was unconstitutional, striking a blow to efforts in U.S. states to regulate LGBTQ conduct.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker, an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump, ruled late on Friday that the law was “both unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad.” The First Amendment to the Constitution commands that laws infringing on freedom of speech must be narrow and well defined, Parker said in the 70-page ruling.
Under the law, offenders could face fines and up to a year in prison and repeat offenders could have faced prison sentences of up to six years. Parker had temporarily blocked the law on March 31, just before it was set to go into effect, siding with Friends of George’s, a Memphis-based LGBTQ theater group that filed suit against the state.
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