Source: phoenixnewtimes.com 2/24/23
A group of Republican state lawmakers focused on attacking LGBTQ Arizonans passed two bills that would criminalize drag shows, businesses that host them, and parents who take their children to see them.
SB 1698, sponsored by Senator Justine Wadsack, would make it a felony for parents to take their child to a drag show. The parents would have to register as sex offenders, too. SB 1030, sponsored by state Senator Anthony Kern, would make it a felony for some businesses to host drag shows.
Republicans in the Arizona Senate can’t decide if they want to label drag performers as sex workers or sex offenders. So, why not both?
I suppose Milton Berle would be considered a sex offender if he was performing today, and the execs at his TV network on the registry as well as all the parents who took their kids to see live broadcasts.
What a strange world we’re in right now that this is what they’re focused on.
Criminalizing a non-criminal act like a drag show is infringing on so many civil rights. Controlling how a business does business is also infringing on so many rights. Is Arizona gonna block tv channels too?
Just do what movie theaters do, post a sign for that particular event has age restrictions and adhere to it. People who do criminal acts in a movie theater will still be prosecuted. As an analogy, why make a movie theater a criminal act?
There are drag shows that are sexual in nature and drag shows that are not. Just don’t allow sexual shows, of any kind, for those under age. Not complicated. But of course our government has to use their broad strock brush to paint a large swath of people irredeemable. The more on the registry the more people will come to understand what a farce it is. I say welcome to the club. (not really wishing this on anyone, but I think registered persons and families understand my point)
I can only hope that:…(yeah it’s another long one…)
1: This legislation will fail completely, then die.
2: The AZ Judiciary takes note of the attempt to declare people that take children to see these shows as SO’s.
This would, of course, include the millions of Americans that have already taken their child, who may now be an adult, to see a show like this. The AZ legislature is saying these people SHOULD BE RFRs? All several million of them? All Predatory Pedophile’s relentlessly pursuing their next child victim?
What about the additional several million parents that let their children watch Ru Paul’s Drag Race, over the last 15+ years it has been on? Also predators? All of them?
Once again, an American legislative body is convinced that there are tens of millions of Predatory Peds scattered all across the Nation. It must be shocking to elected folks how any American child makes it to 18 without being raped by a stranger..?if not several. According to the legislative bodies of America…
All Drag Performance fans….people that have urinated in public…teen sexters…and anyone that didn’t graduate High School as a never been kissed virgin…is a relentless pedo! Per our legislators there has GOT TO BE what….100 million or so people? Per our elected officials, all are heartless monsters, just waiting to get their hands on your kid’s… according to the RSO laws as enacted by our legislative bodies.
You know what is even more baffling about this, per the view of the American Legislators? If there are so f#&$ing many peds…how do these people keep getting elected?!?!? Why do the peds that the elected people of America, seem to think make up the vast majority of the American population, not get rid of these spoil sports and replace them with new people that will legalize everything?
Per the elected officials of this nation, the way better that 50% of all adults are heartless… relentless….yeah yeah….but always vote in Tough on Crime legislators that will increase the number of cops who will hunt them down and throw them in prison! Why is America’s staggeringly large Army of predators, that out legislators insist is a real thing, so self-defeating? I mean seriously, according to the members of America’s various elected bodies, the majority of Americans are peds…so…why keep voting these people in?!?!?
Honestly, this seems to be what they think is true! Well, some of the time. Every person that has ever urinated in public, which includes every man I have ever met as well as numerous women, and the entirety of America’s throngs of homeless, are all peds according to our legislators. There’s 30 million or more right there. Never been kissed virgin HS grad? No? Then you are a pedo, according to our legislators. Another…40, 50 million there….maybe more.
Now we find that, according to this legislative body, parents that let (forced?!?!?) their children watch a drag show…also pedo preds! Not sure how many millions that is. All I know is the vast majority of men are one, if not all of these…fair number of women too. Yeah gotta be at least 40 to 60% of all adult Americans fall into one, if not multiple, of these categories.
Quick members of America’s various legislative bodies, grab your exacto knives…there are numerous hairs that must be split!
So will they be charged with a sex offense? Or a “gender offense”? Will they have to register too? 🙄
“Registered Drag Performer” has a certain ridiculous ring to it, doesn’t it? 🤷🏻♂️
AZ is juimping on Florida’s band wagon the gov of fl revoked liquor lic. of 2 establashments that had drag shows so az is trying to 1 up FL.
I think they should have a huge protest at the Arizona State Capitol. And everyone attending should dress in attire opposite to the gender on their birth certificate! All men in dresses, all women in suits or overalls! And be sure to get lots of photos with those ridiculous Bill-sponsoring lawmakers!!
Good responses to the article, and I’m sure there’s many more to come. But no one has responded to the obvious, which is in the title of the article. For those who continue to think there is no difference between the dems & the GOP, it’s pretty much right in your face regarding this stupid law in Arizona
I recall “America’s Mayor” Rudy Giuliani on national TV (Sat. Nite Live) famously appearing in drag. And on yet another occasion, for a charity fundraiser he dressed in drag. With him at the fundraiser was his good friend, Donald Trump (before he was Pres.), who proceeded to bury his face in Guiliani’s fake breasts, and giving Rudy a ‘motorboat’. Arrest those men!
I have no problem with men who want to wear women’s clothing, just keep these drag shows out of schools because not only is it inappropriate, there’s no educational value in it. Kids are in school to learn grammar, math, science, reading, history, etc., not to have men dressed as women shaking their asses in front of a bunch of kids.
To make parents register as sex offenders for taking their kids to a drag show is going to far, even though no responsible parent should be doing that anyway.
The bill needs to be rewritten to just keep it out of schools.
Next they’ll say the Rocky Horror Picture Show is a vessel of Satan that indoctrinates “our children” and grooms them for gay culture.
I’m surprised they haven’t attempted to ban that movie already .
WOW! You just can not make this s*** up! I can’t help but compare wearing drag outfits & wearing black face. Each generates outrage, however the intent to criminalize each is, in fact, intended to impose affirmative restraint. Who benefits most from forging felons from those not? Obviously it is the political classes.
As a teen I and another friend went in drag to a midnight movie.
I mean mom’s high heels, lipstick, wigs and all. She laughed and loved it took pictures. We had a blast but them shoes hurt my feet. In the early 80s that was an unusual sight that is fairly common today.
This is the evangelical right attempting to overcome the ” there are more of them and less of us” problem come election day problem. AZ Governor election was extremely tight last cycle.
Felons can’t vote.
After reading the article and the comments on this board, here’s my take away…
They want to criminalize drag shows in front of children and those who facilitate it and require that such shows be held in appropriate locations.
I’ve seen enough video of these events where grown men with their asses hanging out twerk in front of pre-teens, little kids stuffing dollars in their banana hammocks while the man recites poetry expressing gratitude to “those who lick us where we pee.” Trying to compare this to a 30-year old TV bit with two flamboyantly gay men is absurd and dishonest.
Would you send your kids to such a “performance?” (If your neighbors knew you did this, would it help change their minds about the registry and the need for you to be on it?)
Do you think this is a healthy way for a young child to learn about sexuality? I sure as shit don’t. I see a lot of people, myself included, drawing connections between what they were exposed to as children and their sex offense. Are near-naked men pole dancing or having kids speak into phallic microphones mounted on their crotch somehow exempt from the list of things that might pervert a young mind?
Do you think the outrage these shows trigger, or your defense of them, helps to advance our issue? Is that really a hill you want to die on?