Update: KY rep’s attempt to revive ban on public drag shows falls short
One state representative’s attempt to revive the bill to ban drag performances from public spaces, as well as any establishment open to minors, fell short late on Wednesday night.
Language in an amendment from Rep. Josh Calloway, R-Irvington, to Senate Bill 5, which appeared before the House on Wednesday, mirrored that of Senate Bill 115. That bill, from Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, R-Smithfield, passed the Senate on a party line vote with one GOP senator passing, but does not have the necessary number of readings in the House to get full passage before the veto break.
After a lengthy floor debate, during which Calloway held forth for around half an hour on his various amendments, Senate Bill 5 passed 80-18 with unanimous Republican support and all but one present Democrat voting against it.
Only 34 House members, all Republicans, voted to suspend the rules to vote on Calloway’s drag amendment. Because 51 votes in the 100-member body are required for amendments to receive a floor vote, the amendment was not voted on.
The vote to suspend the rules on that, as well as Calloway’s various amendments offered a window into something of a rift within the House GOP caucus.
On both the floor and in an interview after the House adjourned, Calloway said that he believes a majority of Republicans in the House would support the material in his amendments if actually brought to a yes or no vote.
“Somewhere in this building, there are people that are blocking meaningful parental rights and child protection education. I don’t know who it is… Somewhere between this chamber and that other chamber over there, there are people that are controlling the gate that evidently disagree with us going this far,” Calloway said.
As Calloway’s amendments failed to be considered, the Senate GOP was also revealing its inner conflict over anti-gender affirming care legislation.
Calloway did not go so far as to say that leadership was responsible for the amendments failing.
On the motivation for the drag amendment, Calloway said he includes drag performance in his definition of “sexually explicit.” He called people who want to allow minors to access that content “predators.”
“If there are adults that want to commit sexually explicit acts and do sexually explicit things in front of children, those people that want to do that are predators. They’re preying on our children,” Calloway said.
As for the fate of the ban on public drag, Senate Bill 115 sponsor Tichenor was unsure.
“There’s always still hope. At this point, I don’t know if we could get it passed before we reach the veto period, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t still pass. So we’ll keep working on it until we can’t work it any more,” Tichenor said.
Calloway’s raft of other amendments to Senate Bill five were broad, and he said were related to “parental rights.” All failed, including one against House Speaker David Osborne’s, R-Prospect, ruling that it was not germane to Senate Bill 5.
Senate Bill 5, sponsored by Sen. Jason Howell, R-Murray, requires Kentucky’s boards of education to adopt a complaint resolution policy for parents who allege that materials taught in school are harmful to minors.
Like Tichenor’s bill, the language in Calloway’s amendment would have prohibited drag shows, considered “adult performance” by the bill’s standards, from taking place on publicly owned property or “in a location where the person knows or should know the adult performance could be viewed” by a child.
Drag performance, particularly performances that are open to children, has become a frequent target of social conservatives looking to “protect” minors from it. It is one of many aspects rolled into a national GOP-led war on “woke” issues.
“They’ve never been marketed to children before. They’ve always been in adult businesses and nobody’s had any problem with that,” Tichenor said. “But now that they’re coming into the public sector, we need to put some guidelines around those because some of those performances are absolutely inappropriate for kids.”
In committee, Tichenor’s SB 115 received strong pushback from many in the LGBTQ+ community, including one Lexington drag queen who went by the name “Poly Tics.”
“Drag is my way of saying ‘I’m gonna live my life the way I want to.’ If I want to wear a sparkly dress and that makes me feel good, I’m gonna wear the dress. Coming from somebody that’s been bullied their whole life and has been constantly told that they’re not enough, they’re not worthy, they’re unnatural, or whatever other hateful things that are constantly spewed, drag was my way to reclaim my life,” Tics said.
Critics have also said that Tichenor’s bill would infringe on First Amendment rights and would jeopardize Pride celebrations across the commonwealth.
This story was originally published March 15, 2023 at 4:55 PM.
