{"id":1906555,"date":"2023-03-29T10:56:06","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T14:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/texas-senate-committee-passes-bills-banning-drag-performances-in-front-of-children\/"},"modified":"2023-03-29T10:57:09","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T14:57:09","slug":"texas-senate-committee-passes-bills-banning-drag-performances-in-front-of-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/texas-senate-committee-passes-bills-banning-drag-performances-in-front-of-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Senate Committee Passes Bills Banning Drag Performances in Front of Children"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftexas-senate-committee-passes-bills-banning-drag-performances-in-front-of-children%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1906555&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"post_content\">\n<p>The Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs passed two bills restricting drag queen performances in the presence of children.<\/p>\n<p>The bills passed in a vote of 6\u20132 on March 27.<\/p>\n<p>Senate Bill 12 would restrict sexually-oriented performances, including drag shows, on public property or businesses where children are present (pdf).\u00a0The other bill, Senate Bill 1601, would deny public funding to libraries that host drag story hours for children (pdf).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll of us can agree that children shouldn\u2019t be exposed to sexually explicit material,\u201d said Republican state Sen. Bryan Hughes, who authored the pair of bills, during a committee hearing on March 23. \u201cThis material can take various forms and print and visual media, as well as live performances.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The bills will head to the full Senate for further debate. If passed, the bills would need House approval before being sent to the governor\u2019s desk for a signature.<\/p>\n<h2>Senate Bill 12<\/h2>\n<p>Unlike similar bills calling for a ban on drag performances in the presence of children, SB 12 is not limited to drag shows.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDrag shows today may be replaced by other types of harmful performances in the future,\u201d Hughes wrote in a statement of intent for the bill. \u201c[SB 12] applies to and will protect children from sexually oriented performances in general.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The bill defines sexually oriented performances as those that include nudity or a male performer exhibiting as female, or vice versa, who sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise performs in front of an audience or appeals to the \u201cprurient interest in sex.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The bill also creates criminal penalties for business owners who host so-called \u201cfamily-friendly drag shows\u201d or other performances as described in the bill.<\/p>\n<p>Violators could face charges for a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $10,000, or both.<\/p>\n<h3>Senate Bill 1601<\/h3>\n<p>Over the last several years, public libraries across the nation, including Texas, have hosted \u201cDrag Queen Story Hour\u201d events for children.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA municipal library may not receive state funds if the library hosts an event at which a man presenting as a woman or a woman presenting as a man reads a book or story to a minor for entertainment and the person being dressed as the opposite gender is a primary component of the entertainment,\u201d Senate Bill 1601 reads.<\/p>\n<h3>Witness Testimony<\/h3>\n<p>Supporters of the proposed legislation testified that this type of explicit exposure is harmful to children and that they should be protected from all sexually oriented entertainment.<\/p>\n<p>Ed Fox, director of education at Good Shepherd Baptist Church in Grand Prairie, Texas, testified to the Senate Committee on State Affairs that he was exposed to sexually oriented entertainment at a young age, and \u201cit has affected my life for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis really should not be something that minors should be subjected to under any circumstance,\u201d Fox continued. \u201cIt\u2019s almost ridiculous that we\u2019ve had to have this conversation because it\u2019s common sense. Children should not be exposed at an early age. It can have bad effects, and so I am personally a witness to that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another witness testified that children are sometimes asked to participate with the drag queens.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are videos of young children putting dollar bills in underwear and children being asked to strut or dance just like the drag queens,\u201d said Mary Elizabeth Castle, director of government relations at Texas Values Action.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s exposing kids to very sexual content at an early age, which research has proven time and time again leads to a lot of issues later in life, including becoming violent, \u2026 problems with intimacy and even dysfunction later in life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Others testified that the bills are too vague and may also be a violation of the First Amendment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis could ensnare and create statewide gender police, which goes far beyond drag to actually criminalizing anyone,\u201d said Brian Klosterboer, attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. \u201cWhether it\u2019s a man singing a song by Dolly Parton, whether it\u2019s a trans or nonbinary person simply performing and being who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Callie Butcher, president of the Dallas LGBT Bar Association, said the bills are \u201cabout silencing the queer community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m disappointed because I have to believe that each of you understands that there\u2019s no problem that needs solving here,\u201d Butcher told the committee. \u201cThe answer to this supposed issue is simple\u2014if you don\u2019t want your child to go to a drag show, don\u2019t take them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has prioritized Senate Bill 12, along with two other bills aimed at protecting children from obscene books in libraries and ending child gender modification.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs passed two bills restricting drag queen performances in the presence of children. The bills passed in a vote of 6\u20132 on March 27. Senate Bill 12 would restrict sexually-oriented performances, including drag shows, on public property or businesses where children are present (pdf).\u00a0The other bill, Senate Bill 1601<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1556,"featured_media":1906556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[6492,3905,4294,4384,7069,5448,23016,3740,3694],"class_list":["post-1906555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times","tag-banning","tag-bills","tag-children","tag-committee","tag-drag","tag-passes","tag-performances","tag-senate","tag-texas"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1906555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1906556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1906555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1906555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1906555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}