Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is reining in the Left’s overreach.
He never expected his agenda to be dealt this setback.
And Chief Justice John Roberts betrayed conservatives when he handed Ron DeSantis this defeat.
An alarming trend of highly sexualized drag queen shows aimed at young children has been spreading around the country.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law in May, Florida’s Protection of Children Act, which bans minors from being allowed to attend an “adult live performance.”
Venues that allowed minors to attend performances featuring “lewd conduct” or “lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts” would face the potential loss of their business licenses and individuals could receive possible misdemeanor criminal charges.
Keeping children from being exposed to sexually explicit performances was a common sense move by the Florida governor to protect them.
Sadly, common sense isn’t so common with the Left these days.
A lawsuit was filed against the law by a restaurant chain that hosts drag shows that said Florida’s Protection of Children Act was too broad and a violation of the First Amendment.
Federal Judge Gregory Presnell, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, sided with the restaurant and issued a preliminary injunction that blocked the law from going into effect.
Florida filed a partial appeal with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals but it was rejected.
The state turned to the Supreme Court with an emergency request to enforce the law against everyone except the restaurant chain that sued them.
The Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling denied Florida’s emergency request to reinstate the Protection of Children Act.
All three Democrat-appointed justices on the court joined Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett in refusing to grant the request.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch voted to allow Florida to let the law partially go into effect.
The case will head back to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for a full appeal.
Kavanaugh joined with Barrett to say that Florida’s case didn’t meet their criteria for issuing an emergency appeal but noted the case could return to the Supreme Court on its merits.
“Florida’s stay application to this Court does not raise that First Amendment issue,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Therefore, the Court’s denial of the stay indicates nothing about our view on whether Florida’s new law violates the First Amendment.”
DeSantis press secretary Jeremy Redfern said that despite the setback the legal battle continues.
“While we are disappointed in this particular ruling, the Supreme Court did not opine on the merits of our law protecting children from sexualized adult live performances,” Redfern said. “This case is still pending appeal at the 11th Circuit, and we expect this law to be upheld on the merits.”
A massive legal fight is underway to protect Florida’s children from being exposed to inappropriate drag queen performances.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
