Orlando restaurant, Hamburger Mary's, is suing DeSantis and Florida over anti-drag law

Hamburger Mary's is suing FL Gov Ron DeSantis over the state's new anti-drag law.

I am glad this is happening. DeSantis pushed for this law, now let him and his people try to defend it:

From The Orlando Sentinel:

Hamburger Mary’s in Orlando is suing Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state of Florida in federal court, claiming the restaurant has been deprived of its First Amendment rights and is already losing customers under a new law affecting drag shows. 

 Gov. DeSantis signed bills last Wednesday taking aim at transgender treatments for minors, pronouns in schools, bathroom use and children attending drag shows. The changes included penalties for venues letting children into “adult live performances” and potential first-degree misdemeanor charges for violators. 

 Hamburger Mary’s filed the lawsuit Monday, which also names as a defendant Melanie Griffin, secretary of Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, is asking the court to stop the law from being enforced. 

 And while defenders of the law saying either that it doesn't target drag or it only calls out sexually explicit performance, Hamburger Mary's lawsuit puts both assertions into question.

The restaurant, which opened in 2008, has hosted drag performances that include bingo, trivia and comedy. On Sundays, the downtown Orlando restaurant has “family friendly” drag shows to which children are invited, the lawsuit said. 

 After the law was signed, the restaurant told customers that children would not be allowed at any drag shows and it lost 20% of its bookings for Sunday and future events, according to the lawsuit. “They simply cannot take the chance that their business or liquor licenses would be suspended for hosting a drag show where children attend,” the lawsuit states. “In addition, the criminal penalties of the law put individuals at risk of prosecution because of the content of their speech.”

 The lawsuit argues the law is broad enough to include “even the most innocent drag performances, to reach into the private homes of Florida citizens, and to determine on behalf of parents what is and is not appropriate entertainment for their children.

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AP - Anti-trans bills are 'ready-made' products of far-right groups, critics complain about how they deliberately distort science

While they certainly took their sweet time doing it, the national media is finally putting an in-depth focus on these bills and the parties behind them.

And it shouldn't be surprising to a lot of us what they found. The Associated Press recently published an article, Many transgender health bills came from a handful of far-right interest groups, AP finds, detailing the following:

At least 17 states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, though judges have temporarily blocked their enforcement in some, including Arkansas. An Associated Press analysis found that often those bills sprang not from grassroots or constituent demand, but from the pens of a handful of conservative interest groups. 

 Many of the proposals, as introduced or passed, are identical or very similar to some model legislation, the AP found. Those ready-made bills have been used in statehouses for decades, often with criticisms of carpetbagging by out-of-state interests. In the case of restrictions on gender-affirming care for youths, they allow a handful of far-right groups to spread a false narrative based on distorted science, critics say.

 . . . The AP obtained the texts of more than 130 bills in 40 state legislatures from Plural, a public policy software company, and analyzed them for similarities to model bills peddled by the conservative groups Do No Harm, which also criticizes efforts to diversify staffing in medicine, and the Family Research Council, which has long been involved in abortion restrictions. One of the clearest examples is in Montana, where nearly all the language in at least one bill can be found in Do No Harm’s model.  . . .  

 . . . Do No Harm’s model and the 2021 Arkansas bill endorsed as a model by the Family Research Council also have many similarities, including the assertion — rebutted by major medical organizations — that the risks of gender-affirming care outweigh its benefits. 

 . . . Such bills often distort valid science that supports gender-affirming care for youths, said Dr. Jack Drescher, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University who edited the section about gender dysphoria in the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual. Do No Harm cites the manual in its model bill. 

 “These bills are not at all interested in patient care,” Drescher said.  “These bills are designed to inflame.” 

 It’s problematic “any time policymakers are cherry-picking isolated studies or scientific research that arrives upon a different conclusion than the rest of the community or that relies upon studies without having that expertise,” said Marty P. Jordan, an assistant professor of political science at Michigan State University. “It’s problematic for the individuals that the legislation could impact. It’s problematic for the larger public, and problematic for democracy writ large.”

Anti-LGBTQ bigotry never changes and never goes away. It simply gets sanitized.

 This from 1985

has turned into this in 2023. 

In reality, it never actually changes. It simply gets repeated after some minor sanitization.

But it's still lies motivated by hate.

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Editor's note - unless something juicy happens, see you Sunday night.

Disney cancels $1 billion development project in Orlando — costing Florida 2,000 jobs - On Wednesday, Florida Gov Ron DeSantis was on cloud nine after signing several anti-LGBTQ bills into law. On Thursday, Disney taught him the first rule of playing the game of chicken with a shark. Don't do it. And just in time for his presidential run announcement. I am loving this. 

Reminder of DeSantis' slate of hate - Ron DeSantis' new law allows trans kids to be taken from their parents 

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NC Lt Gov Mark Robinson

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Ron DeSantis' new law allows trans kids to be taken from their parents

When Florida Gov Ron DeSantis isn't targeting LGBTQ people, he attempts to make himself look congenial. It doesn't work.

We already know that on Wednesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a slate of anti-LGBTQ bills into law. You can see this link to read more about them. 

I want to focus on the following law because it's so damn cruel.

According to The New Republic:

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a horrifying bill Wednesday that will let the state take transgender minors away from their families if they are receiving gender-affirming care. 

 The new law will allow the state to take custody of a child if they have been “subjected to or [are] threatened with being subjected to” gender-affirming care, which includes puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy. Florida courts could modify custody agreements from a different state if the minor is likely to receive gender-affirming care in that second state. The text refers to gender-affirming care as “sex-reassignment prescriptions or procedures” and qualifies this care as a form of “physical harm.” 

 Medical facilities would have to give the state Department of Health a signed attestation that they neither provide gender-affirming care to any patients under the age of 18 nor refer people to providers that do. Their medical license renewal is contingent upon sending in this attestation. 

And it doesn't just target trans kids.

 But the bill also targets trans adults: Only physicians are allowed to offer gender-affirming care (not nurse practitioners). Anyone who violates the law could be charged with a misdemeanor. Minors who have already begun transitioning will be allowed to continue to do so, but they are no longer allowed to receive care via telehealth, including for prescriptions. 

Their doctors have to tell them about the “risks” of gender-affirming care, and patients will have to sign an informed consent form, which the ACLU has pointed out often contains misinformation. Doctors who violate any of these new rules could be charged with a felony.

This news law is simply evil in itself. But it becomes more insidious when one takes into account the allegation that the state may have manipulated data to justify creating it. Independent journalist Erin Reed breaks it all down in a very thorough article:

On August 11th, Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration banned gender affirming care coverage from Medicaid. Meanwhile, the board of medicine proceeded to ban gender affirming care for transgender youth. To do this, they relied on a newly created “Standards of Care” for the treatment of gender dysphoria that was rife with errors and omissions. Now, new court filings show that the Florida Surgeon General’s Office and the Agency for Health Care Administration purposefully manipulated this research to justify banning gender affirming care, including a flow chart produced before the “research” was commissioned with the explicit end goal of “care effectively banned.” Worse, they utilized a consultant from a religious conversion therapy organization to do so.

Gender-affirming care for trans people, including trans kids, is safe and supported by over 20 major medical groups including the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.  The government has no business interjecting itself into private family decisions by way of laws passed through lies and deliberate misappropriate of studies.

This attack on gender-affirming care is a fraudulent undertaking motivated by lies, prejudice, and - in the case of Ron DeSantis -  a craven desire for higher office. It's very similar to past attacks on gay rights, even down to the fake experts and the horror anecdotes about children being indoctrinated.