’Targeting gay people’ vs setting ‘guardrails’. Bill regulating drag closer to passage

A bill to create a bigger buffer between “adult-oriented businesses” and performances and places where children are likely to gather was approved by a House committee on Tuesday.

While opponents of Senate Bill 147 criticized it as a thinly-veiled way of “targeting gay people,” Republicans who voted in favor said it would provide much-needed “guardrails” for an industry they allege preys on children.

The House Standing Committee on Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protection voted along party lines Tuesday to move the bill to the House for floor votes — one of the last steps before final passage.

Senate Bill 147 from Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, R-Smithfield, would dictate that “adult entertainment” businesses, as well as commercial use locations hosting “performances with explicitly sexual conduct,” cannot do so within 933 feet — roughly the average length of a city block — of certain locations where children might be.

The businesses and performances targeted include adult arcades, video stores, theater and adult cabaret, including drag shows if those performances include “explicitly sexual conduct.” Locations where kids might be include houses of worship, schools, parks, childcare centers, libraries and play facilities.

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Bob Heleringer, a former Republican state representative who now advocates on behalf of the Fairness Campaign, called the bill a “debasement” of the General Assembly.

Like with “a lot of bills that target gay people across Kentucky,” Heleringer said, “of course no one would say (they’re) explicitly” meant to target gay people. Instead, he said supporters of those bills say they’re “protecting children.”

While some Republicans on the committee took offense at this suggestion, others seemed to suggest that it was the stated goal of some LGBTQ people to prey on children, therefore bills like this were needed.

Rep. Bill Wesley, R-Ravenna, said the bill “puts up guardrails for our children.”

Wesley then referenced two video-recorded events, one from a June 2023 Pride celebration and another of a gay choir performance, wherein people in both were reportedly chanting, “we’re coming for your children.”

“What this bill does it put up guardrails, because there’s some that does not want to go down that way,” Wesley said.

Rep. Chris Fugate, R-Chavies, a pastor, mentioned a young person who attended his church a few weeks ago, dressed in clothes that didn’t match their gender assigned at birth, and said this “confusion” was caused by abuse.

“A young man come to our church two Sundays ago, (and) he was dressed as a young lady,” Fugate said. “My heart breaks for him, because our society has come a society that causes confusion. Our kids are confused. Somewhere along that line, someone abused that young man, no doubt.”

Being transgender, or living with gender dysphoria, is when a person experiences distress because the sex they were assigned at birth differs from their gender identity. It’s a recognized identity by major medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the American Medical Association.

Fugate said this bill is “not about hating people at all,” nor is it about “taking somebody’s freedom away,” he said.

“Freedom is the ability to act within boundaries that are set for society,” he said. “When you go outside the boundaries of what I believe God’s word teaches us, (it brings) destruction to a people.”

Actions that bring destruction to people include “drag queen shows and all that garbage,” Fugate said.

“The truth’s the truth. How can we be for dressing up like a lady and reading books to our kids?”

Rep. Rachel Roberts, D-Newport, who voted “no,” said Fugate’s comments put her “at a loss for words.”

“I wonder if your heart would break if I had shown up wearing a tie today. I wonder if your heart breaks because I have short hair.”

Roberts added that the bill “just seems mean. It just seems like we’re trying to target a specific group of people who are already marginalized.

“I am perpetually disappointed when we try to legislate morality here.”

How does the bill impact drag shows?

Despite Fugate’s comments, drag story hours in libraries would still be allowed under this bill, as would any other drag performance that isn’t overtly sexual, Tichenor said.

Still, David Walls, executive director of the Family Foundation, a conservative Christian policy organization, said drag story hours are an example of “targeting children on public property.”

When Tichenor originally filed the bill in late January, it included “drag” as a more catch-all performance that would be restricted. Tichenor filed a similar proposal in 2023, but it died in the House.

After having conversations with drag queens this year, Tichenor said she narrowed the definition to allow those performers more leeway. Since not all drag is sexually explicit, not all drag performances need to be regulated, she has told lawmakers as her bill inches closer to becoming law.

On Tuesday, she told committee members that she wanted to make sure drag performers were “as happy as they could be with” the final version of the bill.

But even for drag shows more geared for adults that would be subject to regulations under this bill, who’s going to police the conduct, Heleringer asked.

Though the latest version of the bill no longer includes the word “drag,” it still includes definitions of drag as examples of what would be outlawed: any performer who is “caricatured” and “exhibits an exaggerated gender expression that is inconsistent with the biological sex of the performer” by using “clothing, makeup, or other physical markers” in such a way that can be considered “explicitly sexual.”

Heleringer asked who would be the judge of whether a performer’s gender expression is too “exaggerated,” or whether a performer’s drag persona was at odds with their biological sex?

Rep. Steve Bratcher, R-Elizabethtown, said he’s disappointed that opponents to the bill see it as policy to malign one group of people over another, and that “we don’t have enough respect and courtesy to protect our children.”

What about the rights of parents, he asked.

“Where are my rights? Where are the rights of my children?” he said. “To not have to walk out of church, a library, or a restaurant and see genitalia?”

Not all Republicans casting a vote in favor of the bill agreed with the morality underpinning many of the “yes” votes.

Rep. Stephanie Dietz, R-Edgewood, separated herself from some of her colleagues’ comments.

“I don’t share the same sentiments that someone is sick, or we need to change them,” Dietz said. “I just needed to say that and be protective of the constituency I represent.”