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| Florida Governor Ron DeSantis |
The drag queens beat DeSantis again.
From News 10 Tampa Bay:
A federal appeals court Wednesday refused to put on hold a ruling that blocked a Florida law aimed at preventing children from attending drag shows. A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, rejected a request by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to place a partial stay on a preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell.
The request, if granted, would have allowed the law to be enforced against almost all venues in the state while an underlying appeal of Presnell’s ruling played out. Presnell issued the injunction in a lawsuit filed by the Orlando restaurant Hamburger Mary’s — but also applied the injunction to venues statewide.
In seeking the partial stay, lawyers for the DeSantis administration argued that the injunction should only apply to Hamburger Mary’s.
“An injunction preventing enforcement of the statute against HM (Hamburger Mary’s) fully protects HM from any … harm,” the state’s lawyers argued in a July motion. “In granting broader relief, the district court irreparably harmed the state by ordering it to refrain from enforcing a duly enacted law designed to protect children from exposure to age-inappropriate, sexually explicit live performances.”
In Wednesday’s majority opinion, Judges Adalberto Jordan and Robin Rosenbaum said Presnell ruled that the law was likely overbroad and unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Jordan and Rosenbaum pointed to legal precedents and said, for example, that in “other cases where a law has been found to be overbroad in violation of the First Amendment, we have affirmed injunctions preventing enforcement of a law or ordinance against nonparties as well as parties.”
