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Drag queens who tell tales with children may have their days numbered in Arkansas as a new bill seeks to redefine performances as “adult-oriented businesses” and ban them from public property.
Senate Bill 43which was introduced Monday in the Arkansas Senate, is intended to place restrictions on where drag performances could take place in the state.
The bill sponsored by Arkansas Senator Gary Stubblefield and Representative Mary Bentley has added ‘drag performance’ to a list of adult-oriented businesses in Arkansas code.
Examples of adult-oriented businesses today include adult bookstores or video stores, live adult entertainment, escort agencies, nude model studios, adult-service massage businesses, adult theaters, and adult cabarets.
A drag queen tells stories to children in Rhode Island when similar storytelling sessions could have their days numbered in Arkansas
Drag performances have been defined as an “adult-oriented business” in a bill introduced Monday in the Arkansas Senate sponsored by Arkansas Sen. Gary Stubblefield (pictured)
The bill goes on to define a drag performance as something in which a performer “displays a gender identity that is different from the performer’s assigned gender at birth.”
‘[This includes] wearing clothing, makeup, or other accessories that are traditionally worn by members and are intended to exaggerate the performer’s opposite-sex gender identity,” the bill reads.
The performer would be someone before an audience of two or more, and ‘intends to appeal to prurient interests’.
Webster defines ‘lewd’ as ‘Having or expressing lustful ideas or desires’, or ‘tends to excite lust, lascivious, lascivious’.
The bill also states that no adult-oriented business can be located on public property or where a minor, defined as someone under the age of 18, can see it.
“Drag performance means a performance in which one or more performers sing, lip-synch, dance, or perform before an audience of at least two people for entertainment,” the bill states.
‘An adult-oriented business must not be located: On public property or where a minor can see what the adult-oriented business is; otherwise, offer to the public to qualify as an adult-oriented business.’
In previous legislative sessions, Arkansas has made national headlines for legislation that appears to be directed at the trans community.
In 2021, Arkansas made headlines for passing the first type of legislation in the nation banning surgical or drug intervention on minor patients who identify as transgender.
The Saving Teens From Experimentation Act, or SAFE Act, passed despite a veto by Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson. Hutchison said he opposed the bill, describing it as “great government overreach.”
A lawsuit filed in opposition to the law is currently before the investigating judge for a decision.
The new bill seeks to redefine drag performances as ‘adult-oriented business’, and ban them on public property and where minors may view them.
While some events include drag performers reading books to children, the appropriateness of the content, which sometimes introduces transgenderism to underage children, has fueled debate.
After being introduced Monday, the bill was referred to the City, County and Local Affairs Committee.
Many bills need a simple majority to pass, according to the Arkansas Senate website.
‘In the 35-member Senate, a simple majority is 18 votes. In the House of 100 members there are 51 votes’, it reads.
‘Appropriations and some tax increase bills need an extraordinary majority of 75 percent to pass.
‘In the Senate there are 27 votes. Bills that would change an initiated law require a two-thirds majority, or 24 votes in the Senate and 67 in the House.
After a Senate bill is recommended by committee and approved by the entire house, it is sent to the House, where the process is repeated.
“If the House adds an amendment, the Senate must vote again on the amended version of the bill in what is known as a concurrence on amendment.”
Stubblefield said arkansasonline.com that the goal of the bill “is to prevent these drag queen shows” from being shown to minors in Arkansas.
‘If they want adults, that’s up to them. We have all kinds of laws to protect our children,’ she said.
Over the weekend, unsavory scenes unfolded outside of an hour-long drag queen read-out for neurodiverse kids in Manhattan.
It came just a week after a man was arrested for assaulting an NYPD officer outside a similar event.
Protesters hurled obscenities and insults outside the event at the Andrew Heiskell Library in the Chelsea neighborhood on Saturday.
Meanwhile, in December, more than 100 counter-protesters greeted protesters against a children’s drag queen reading hour event in New York City.
The Guardians of Divinity, who describe themselves as the ‘Army of God’, marched on the Jackson Heights Library in Queens, where a Drag Story Hour event was taking place.
But they were met by a larger crowd defending the event.
Earlier that month, people protested a children’s drag queen story time event in Ohio.