In Florida, you have to be 18 to possess a firearm. You have to be 21 to buy a firearm.
You have to be 18 to consent to sex. You have to be 18 to marry.
You have to be 18 to work at a restaurant that serves beer or booze. You have to be 21 to drink them.
You have to be 16 to drive a car, but only until 11 PM and not before 6 AM.
LGBTQ+ activists are upset that Florida placed age restrictions on watching sex shows. That’s because the + stands for pedo. Stopping Drag Queen Story Hours and the like makes the job more difficult for groomers.
Three years ago, Florida Republicans passed the Protection of Children Act in 2023, which means you have to be 18 to enter a strip joint or other sex-related show. Hamburger Mary’s, a drag show outfit in Orlando, challenged the law in federal court and won an injunction on enforcement.
On Tuesday, the 11th Circuit Court lifted that injunction, allowing police to enforce the state law.
A TV station in Orlando reported:
Hamburger Mary’s told the court the law’s wording was so broad and unclear it chilled constitutionally protected speech and forced changes to operations. In the appeals court’s summary of the record, the business said it:
- Offered drag performances, including a “family friendly” Sunday show where children were invited.
- Announced in advance when shows were not suitable for children and barred children from those events.
- Ultimately canceled family drag shows and barred minors from other shows after the law passed.
- Hamburger Mary’s also alleged business losses after changing its approach to minors attending performances.
In 2022, liberals tried to overturn a law that prohibited teachers from discussing their sex lives to prepubescent children. Liberals branded it the Don’t Say Gay bill even though gay (or homosexual) was not in the bill. The public reacted by re-electing Governor Ron DeSantis by 19 points, the biggest landslide in its gubernatorial races in 40 years.
Liberals call this one the No Drag Queens law. Drag queens are not mentioned in the law because Republicans in Florida know what they are doing (unlike West Virginia).
In challenging the law and common sense, Hamburger Mary’s cited an old favorite of liberals, the free speech clause of the First Amendment because that clause can mean anything to anyone at anytime. Most judges fall for any free speech argument a liberal makes, even overturning Virginia’s ban on burning crosses. Clarence Thomas was the only dissent in that dastardly Supreme Court decision.
In this case, the TV station said the ruling means sex shows will have to impose age limits (18+), post clearer warning labels in advertising. have more ID checks at the door and use more caution about what minors are allowed to see.
I don’t understand the protest. Are ID cards kryptonite to Democrats?
Remember the 1981 movie Porky’s? Say what you may about its proprietor, he made sure underage high schoolers stayed out. Let them go peek at the girls in the showers like any young man should. Mister we could use a man like Porky Wallace again.
The governor said of the ruling, “This shouldn’t even be controversial. Yet our law protecting kids required us to fend off lawsuits and win a case before a divided appellate court.”
Indeed, the court decision was 8-5 by all the judges on the appellate court, not just 3 who voted 2-1 to block the law. Court decisions should not be decided on the luck of the draw like that.
The majority said, “We are convinced the district court erred in preliminarily enjoining the enforcement of the Act. This is so for two reasons.
“First, the district court lacked authority to impose a universal injunction that prevented the enforcement of the Act against everyone in Florida. The Supreme Court has held that a so-called universal injunction ‘falls outside the bounds of a federal court’s equitable authority under the Judiciary Act,’ and we see no exception that would apply in this case.
“Second, Hamburger Mary’s was not entitled to even a more limited preliminary injunction to prevent the enforcement of the Act because its claims do not have a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. The Supreme Court of Florida’s definition of ‘lewd’ eliminates any overbreadth, and the use of the phrase ‘age of the child present’ does not render the Act unconstitutionally vague. Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s preliminary injunction in its entirety.”
But the case goes back to the district judge to make another foolish ruling.
I am convinced that the protesting is not about drag shows in bars. They protest banning drag queens from LGBTQ+ parades.
In the 11th Circuit’s 8-5 decision, the majority cited Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, a 2025 Supreme Court decision that said the Texas attorney general (and I hope the next senator from that state) was right in cracking down on letting kids see online porn. The vote was 6-3 in favor of Paxton. I don’t have to tell readers who voted how.
Writing for the majority, Justice Thomas said, “Texas, like many States, prohibits the distribution of sexually explicit content to children. But, although that prohibition may be effective against brick-and-mortar stores, it has proved challenging to enforce against online content. In an effort to address this problem, Texas enacted, which requires certain commercial websites that publish sexually explicit content to verify the ages of their visitors. This requirement furthers the lawful end of preventing children from accessing sexually explicit content.
“But, it also burdens adult visitors of these websites, who all agree have a First Amendment right to access at least some of the content that the websites publish. We granted certiorari to decide whether these burdens likely render H.B. 1181 unconstitutional under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. We hold that they do not. The power to require age verification is within a State’s authority to prevent children from accessing sexually explicit content. H.B. 1181 is a constitutionally permissible exercise of that authority.”
How odd that a fictional villain in teen sex comedy protected kids better than our esteemed federal judges who are confirmed by our esteemed senators.
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This article first appeared on Don Surber’s Substack. Reprinted here with permission.
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