In the latest example of Republican idiots finding out that legislation designed to violate the Constitution is unconstitutional, Texas’ Senate Bill 12 (S.B. 12) was shot down by federal judge David Hittner on Sept. 26. The bill is essentially designed to ban public drag performances. Despite not explicitly labeling them as criminal, its statement of intent and public statements by politicians like Greg Abbott have made quite clear that drag performances are the bill’s target.
The bill’s intent to target drag performances is not particularly subtle. The legislation aims to essentially ban sexually oriented performances in public areas where a minor could “reasonably be expected” to see it, which could mean literally anywhere. Given that Republicans have been demonizing drag shows as inherently sexual and dangerous to children for quite a while now, it’s not difficult to discern the intention.
Moreover, although it was removed, the bill’s original draft included an insane clause that attempted to amend the definition of a sexually oriented performance to include any performance featuring “a male performer exhibiting as a female, or a female performer exhibiting as a male” and appealing “to the prurient interest in sex.” The latter clause is subjective considering the unpredictable nature of human sexuality, and to completely arbitrarily apply it exclusively to crossdressing performers is absurd.
Despite the removal of that clause, the final bill still includes provisions that are unjustifiably broad. Its definition of sexually oriented performances contains “sexual gesticulations using accessories or prosthetics that exaggerate male or female sexual characteristics.” Nowhere does the bill define what constitutes a “sexual gesticulation,” nor does it make any attempt to clarify exactly what “accessories” or “sexual characteristics” are being referred to.
The bill also includes actual or simulated contact “occurring between one person and the buttocks, breast or any part of the genitals of another person” in the aforementioned definition. These body parts, for the less mathematically inclined, make up a significant percentage of the surface area of the human body, and the bill also makes no attempt to define what “simulated contact” means.
Given the heavy ambiguity, as noted by Judge Hittner, these provisions are unconstitutionally overbroad and could easily criminalize common activities such as cheerleading and live theater among others. Republicans don’t care about any of the glaring structural flaws present in this bill, though, as its author, Senator Bryan Hughes, has stated his party’s intent to defend it “all the way to the Supreme Court if that’s what it takes” and that the bill is “common sense.”
The thing is, although the stated intention of Republicans is generally to somehow “protect children” when it comes to targeting drag, the first draft of S.B. 12 gave the game away. Their direct attempt to make crossdressing inherently sexual and criminal was made for the same reasons the party platform of the Texas GOP unambiguously rejects and condemns homosexual and transgender identities. The Republican Party seeks to eradicate gender diversity and utilize the structural violence of prisons and fines to do so.
Anyone who’s been paying attention to Republicans for any length of time shouldn’t be surprised by this. The party that desperately and unanimously tried to keep gay marriage illegal into the 2010s and practically ignored the HIV epidemic for four years in the 1980s has not started attacking LGBTQ+ people out of the good of their hearts. They’re doing it for the same reasons they’ve always done it.
Republicans passing and fiercely defending an unconstitutional bill may lead many to believe the radicalization of the party as a result of Donald Trump is to blame, but that is not the case. Republicans didn’t lose their minds after 2016, their rhetoric just got bolder. The party retains today the same genocidal roots it’s had for over half a century.
As such, the conclusion to be drawn is that centrism and moderate politics are not acceptable. A party that is actively attempting to destroy the culture, lifestyle and, in many cases, actual lives of millions of people cannot be reasoned or compromised with. It is not radical to say that Republicans must be defeated at all costs. It is simply, in the eloquent words of Bryan Hughes, “common sense.”
