Lizzo didn’t do it, but she was advised to cancel her performances in Tennessee over the weekend.
04.04.2023 - 08:15 / qvoicenews.com
A federal judge in Tennessee has blocked the state’s anti-drag law from going into effect for 14 days. Photo: United States District Court, Western District of Tennessee.
A federal judge in Tennessee has blocked the state’s anti-drag law from going into effect for now.
The law, which restricts drag performances, was signed into law last month by Republican Gov. Bill Lee. It passed along with a bill banning gender-affirming care for youth.
Those found in violation of the law, which bans “adult cabaret entertainment” with “male or female impersonators,” could face felony charges on repeat offenses.
It bans drag performances from public property or venues that “could be viewed by a person who is not an adult.”
Memphis-based nonprofit Friends of George’s, a theater company that produces original, drag-centric performances, sued the state earlier this week over the anti-drag law.
In their suit, the group said the law “explicitly (restricts or chills) speech and expression protected by the First Amendment based on its content, its message, and its messenger.”
U.S. District Court Judge Thomas L. Parker, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, handed down a 14-day temporary restraining order only hours before the law was to go into effect.
In his order, Parker explained that the state hadn’t provided “a clear answer to the Statute’s purpose considering current state obscenity laws, along with the Parties’ present filings on the Statute’s legislative history, the Court finds that Plaintiff has made a likely case for subjecting the Statute to strict scrutiny here.”
He noted that the restrictions placed on the theater were not “trifling issues for a theater company — certainly not in the free, civil society we hold our
Lizzo didn’t do it, but she was advised to cancel her performances in Tennessee over the weekend.
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Watch out for this big grrrl, Tennessee lawmakers.
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Actors’ Equity Association has filed an amicus brief in Tennessee opposing that state’s new law – the first in the nation – intended to limit or ban some drag shows.
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signed a bill that banned “adult cabaret entertainment” on public property or in locations where it can be viewed by minors, including “topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators, or similar entertainers.”Critics of the law, which went into effect April 1, say that categorizing drag as “adult entertainment” automatically deems them sexualized performances. They also argue the language surrounding “male and female impersonators” is inherently anti-trans.At least a dozen other states are considering similar anti-drag legislation. It was a topic of discussion at the recent taping of the “RuPaul’s Drag Race” finale.For Season 15 contestant Aura Mayari, the anti-drag law hits close to home.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is tracking 452 anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S., according to data the organization has compiled through April 11. These bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the U.S. since January and represent a new record — already more than twice the number of such bills introduced all of last year.
Jamie Lee Curtis is sharing her support and appreciation for Karol G after the singer revealed she felt very uncomfortable with her latest magazine cover, as it was pointed out that she was heavily edited. “I’m so happy that Karol G is bringing awareness to an issue I have been concerned about for a long time,” the Hollywood star wrote.The Colombian artist said she felt “disrespected,” after her “GQ magazine cover was made public,” explaining that she didn’t feel represented by the image, despite having shared her unconformities before it was published.“My face doesn’t look like that, my body doesn’t look like that and I feel very happy and comfortable with how I look naturally.
Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor As Fox Corp. prepares to fight a looming and high-profile defamation case, it has agreed to settle another. The company, which owns Fox News, has reached a confidential agreement to resolve a defamation case levied against it by Venezuelan businessman Majed Khalil that alleged Fox News and former host Lou Dobbs had harmed Khalil’s reputation by stating he and three others developed programs and machines to rig the 2020 presidential election. “This matter has been resolved amicably by both sides. We have no further comment,” Fox News said in a statement after being contacted by Variety. A letter filed Saturday to Judge Louis L. Stanton of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York informed authorities that the parties in the case “have reached a confidential agreement to resolve this matter. The parties anticipate filing a joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice early next week.”
Drag March LA, a rally in West Hollywood to protest anti-LGBTQ legislation. The event, which kicked off at West Hollywood Park at 10 a.m. PT, included remarks by Los Angeles LGBT Center CEO Joe Hollendonor, Los Angeles county supervisor Lindsey Horvath and West Hollywood Mayor Sepi Shyne. “RuPaul’s Drag Race” stars Kerri Colby and Honey Davenport also performed. In response to growing rhetoric supported by the Christian Nationalist movement calling LGBTQ+ people “unsafe” for families, Drag March was organized to take place on Easter Sunday, with members of faith groups joining to show their support of the LGBTQ community.
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signed into law in 2021.However, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, saying they would have granted Morrisey’s request.A federal judge previously blocked the law from taking effect while a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the ban proceeds.The plaintiff in the case, 12-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson, is a transgender girl who tried to join her middle school girls’ cross-country team, but was informed that she would be barred from the team due to the law prohibiting transgender athletes from competing in female-designated sports.Pepper-Jackson sued state officials, her local school board, the West Virginia Board of Education, and the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission, arguing that the law is unconstitutional and discriminatory.In July 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Goodwin, of the Southern District of West Virginia, issued an injunction blocking the law from taking effect on the grounds that Pepper-Jackson was likely to prevail in her claim that the law is discriminatory.Six months later, Goodwin rejected Pepper-Jackson’s claim that the law violates Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination, finding the ban constitutional and asserting that the state had a legitimate interest in ensuring cisgender female athletes are not disadvantaged by having to compete against athletes assigned male at birth.
Tennessee Holler, a progressive news site covering Tennessee politics and a former congressional candidate, issued a statement on Twitter talking about his family’s experience.“Our family’s statement on something that happened to us this weekend. Love each other,” he tweeted.In the statement, Kanew claimed that last Saturday, an unknown person shot several bullets into his home while he and his family were asleep.
slain at the Nashville Covenant School shooting last Monday and recounted her own experience of being in a school shooting in Knoxville, Tennessee.“The community of sorrow over this and the 130 mass shootings in the U.S. this year alone stretches from coast to coast,” the 29-year-old singer said.“I wanted to personally stand up here and share this moment because on Aug.
Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic During the opening monolog at Sunday night’s CMT Music Awards, broadcast from Austin on CBS, there was a comedic bit in which Kelsea Ballerini and Kane Brown exchanged anniversary presents to celebrate their cohosting of the show for the third consecutive time. Brown gave Ballerini a cowboy hat, and she reciprocated by giving him a pink hat to put on in return. At least a few audience members shared a joke about the exchange: By wearing pink, would Brown be breaking Tennessee’s recently passed law that some believe would ban most drag performances in the state, if they were back home? Viewers whose minds went there during that silly opening were just kidding — but Ballerini really went there later in the three-hour telecast, when she chose four “RuPaul’s Drag Race” queens to perform with her as she sang “If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Down Too).” That song, off her 2022 album “Subject to Change,” is Ballerini’s anthem of female friendship — and, with the way the CMT Awards routine played out, she very much seemed to be counting drag performers as among those friends. The performance was playful and ostensibly non-political, and in a different year might not have raised very many shaved or unshaved eyebrows. In spring 2023, it was hard to read it as anything other than a statement of: If drag queens are brought down, the rest of us will be dragged down with them.
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