Outside the Beltway

“Drag Queen Story Hour – February 24, 2018” by City of West Hollywood is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Legislative Signal v. Political Noise

The weakness of anti-drag queen legislation.

Steven L. Taylor
42

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“Drag Queen Story Hour – February 24, 2018” by City of West Hollywood is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

I found the following, via NPR, to be rather interesting and a bit emblematic of our current political moment: Despite all the talk, no states have active laws banning drag in front of kids.

Bills restricting drag have failed to pass, passed as watered-down laws, have been vetoed or, in the case of three states that did manage to pass meaningful restrictions, laws have been temporarily halted by federal judges.

This all strikes me as an interesting contrast between an awful lot of noisy rhetoric resulting in a lot less legislative action than one might have assumed was the case. It is especially surprising because one would think in many of these states getting stronger legislation passed would not have been that difficult. I am not sure how much of this is about the lack of legislative skills and how much is about broader legal protections (and hence the judicial interventions).

I do think a lot of it is a bunch of politicians grasping onto an easy target while not really caring about it in a substantive way.

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42 responses to “Legislative Signal v. Political Noise”

  1. OzarkHillbilly Avatar
    OzarkHillbilly

    I do think a lot of it is a bunch of politicians grasping onto an easy target while not really caring about it in a substantive way.

    Ding ding ding… We have a winner.

    The GOP cares about only 2 things: Keeping the money spigot open to the oligarchs and making sure the proletariat is so distracted they don’t notice who the real masters are.

    13
  2. drj Avatar
    drj

    I do think a lot of it is a bunch of politicians grasping onto an easy target while not really caring about it in a substantive way.

    Maybe because many voters don’t really care about realistic policy, let alone policy outcomes.

    I am fairly convinced that a large percentage of voters (although probably not a majority) simply vote for the candidate who says the things they like to hear.

    And for those voters, that alone is enough.

    Unfortunately, there is a big opportunity cost. Legislators who spend their time bashing the enemy du jour, don’t spend their time coming up with proposals to make their constituents’ lives better. Instead, it’s all about re-election.

    There are many legislators who care far more about being a legislator than about legislation.

    And if you give such people the opportunity to pick their own voters, well…

    4
  3. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    Since the Tea Party gained ascendancy in the GOP I’ve been at least a little reassured by the fact that their chosen representatives and Senators have little to no desire, much less experience, in crafting legislation. It means that most of what passes for Republican “initiatives” is simply written by corporations and interest groups, and if there isn’t a well organized and professional backer, it’s going to be poorly written and even more poorly executed.

  4. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @drj:

    I am fairly convinced that a large percentage of voters (although probably not a majority) simply vote for the candidate who says the things they like to hear.

    I think that is giving too much credit. As Dr. Taylor has so convincingly demonstrated over the years, the vast majority of voters simply vote for their team, regardless of who is put before them.

    3
  5. Kylopod Avatar
    Kylopod

    Just because these laws haven’t passed doesn’t mean the efforts haven’t resulted in real-world harm. The Pulse night club shooting is proof of that.

    7
  6. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    In San Antonio, pride abides.

    Kristi Waters makes history as River Walk pageant’s first drag queen contestant

    In a groundbreaking move that is sure to turn heads, Kristi Waters will make history by becoming the first drag queen to enter the San Antonio River Walk Royalty race.

    Waters, a popular San Antonio drag queen whose career spans almost two decades, announced her candidacy Monday. She will compete against five other women to be crowned queen.

    But for Waters, she said her candidacy means much more than an award. Waters said she wants to inspire and empower members of the LBGTQ+ community to be more visible and resilient in the face of adversity.

    1
  7. Kylopod Avatar
    Kylopod

    @Scott: This was from a while back, but I did find it interesting in light of the GOP’s attempts to weaponize Christianity against LGBT:

    First drag queen certified as a candidate for United Methodist ministry ‘speaking in a new way to new people’

    Isaac Simmons is the first openly gay man to be certified within the Illinois Great Rivers Conference and, as far as anyone can tell, the first drag queen certified in the United Methodist Church.

    1
  8. Daryl Avatar
    Daryl

    Seriously…MAGA wants to do away with Mrs. Doubtfire? Max Klinger? Bosom Buddies? Tyler f’ing Perry?
    And you are wondering why it hasn’t been effective?
    These MAGA people are not serious people.

    3
  9. DK Avatar
    DK

    It is especially surprising because one would think in many of these states getting stronger legislation passed would not have been that difficult.

    It’s difficult because Republicans know what they’re doing is wrong and does not pass constitutional muster. They know they’re illegally targeting the free speech rights of a protected class. The mealy-mouthed, overbroad language in these laws = conservatives attempting to blunt the unlawfulness of their targeting.

    That even Federalist-approved judges are rejecting the watered down language too is a testament to just how indefensible these rightwing drag bans are.

    You can’t win a culture war through legislation, you have to change hearts and minds — especially of the next generation. But the bigotry, fearmongering, science-denial and extremism Republicans offer is uninspiring and unattractive to increasingly powerful voting blocs, including millennials and Zoomers. That leaves the right no choice but to try to write their hate into law. It’s a losing battle long term.

    3
  10. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @drj:

    I am fairly convinced that a large percentage of voters (although probably not a majority) simply vote for the candidate who says the things they like to hear.

    There is some truth to this. But I would also note that the structure of voting we have does not promote policy-oriented campaigning, especially at the primary level, which is often the actual selection point. I agree that voters bear a lot of responsibility, but will continue to note that when the general election is often non-competitive, pointing at the voters misses the mark.

    I say this not to exonerate voters and their choices, but to note that as long as we, collectively, think that that the fault is the voter, we will never, ever get needed reforms.

    @MarkedMan: There’s that, too. And when there are only two viable choices…

    1
  11. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    @DK:

    You can’t win a culture war through legislation, you have to change hearts and minds — especially of the next generation.

    It’s a hearts and minds thing on both sides. Unfortunately the next generation doesn’t have enough votes, so we need the older voters, we need their hearts and minds too, at least through this coming cycle. Fortunately Republicans are over-reaching and overly fixated on ‘wokeness,’ which is not working nearly as well as they thought it would. (Eh, Meatball Ron?).

    Focusing on drag queens were a mistake of theirs. Like freaking out over Barbie. If the big evil is a dude wearing a wig and a doll with no nipples, it’s hard to thrust out your chin and pass yourself off as a courageous defender of western civilization.

    3
  12. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Steven L. Taylor: would also note that some of this stuff is pure signalling to voters that politicians are conservative, in a genral sense, which has poloicy implications.

    1
  13. Kylopod Avatar
    Kylopod

    @Daryl:

    Seriously…MAGA wants to do away with Mrs. Doubtfire? Max Klinger? Bosom Buddies? Tyler f’ing Perry?

    Mrs. Doubtfire is a particularly interesting example in this light, because unlike many other drag comedies it has generally been viewed as a family film, and it ends with the Williams character creating a Mr. Rogers-esque TV show for kids with Mrs. Doubtfire as the host. Drag queen story hour is part of the plot, and it’s shown in a favorable light.

    Did right-wingers even notice the film at the time? I can’t recall. That was certainly an era of anti-gay panic as well as Republican complaints about Hollywood pushing a liberal agenda (remember Bob Dole’s speech complaining about a series of films it turned out he hadn’t even seen?). But I don’t think Mrs. Doubtfire was particularly a target at the time, possibly because the topic of drag was through a very heteronormative lens (even if the Williams character got his disguise from his gay brother played by Harvey Fierstein). A lot of traditional drag comedies (Some Like It Hot, Tootsie) base much of their humor around hetero men’s fear of homosexuality, which actually is not the focal point of Mrs. Doubtfire.

    That’s part of why the recent anti-drag obsession is just plain weird, even if the larger framework of anti-LGBT panic is nothing new. Drag has for a long time been among the most mainstream and widely accepted art form that has any relationship to LGBT culture.

    3
  14. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Kylopod: My personal memory of Mrs. Doubtfire is that it was largely beloved and I do not recall any backlash. (But that is just my memory).

    A more recent example would be RuPaul, and the whole Drag Race reality TV stuff that I don’t recall massive backlash.

    Drag has for a long time been among the most mainstream and widely accepted art form that has any relationship to LGBT culture.

    I think the key is that as LGBT rights have expanded and things like same-sex marriage being normalized, there is a need to find a new wedge. And that wedge has been trans rights, and drag has been pulled into that debate.

    3
  15. Slugger Avatar
    Slugger

    A real scorecard of children molested by drag queens versus molested by youth pastors would come out DQ 1* YP 5001. It’s youth pastors we should be banning.
    * I can’t think of any actual DQ molestors but somewhere there must be one; they are human beings after all.

    2
  16. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Slugger: This is one of the profound ironies of all of this “groomer” nonsense: the place in American society where we know there has been long-term, repeated sexual abuse of children has been in churches, which are allegedly safe spaces.

    11
  17. Kylopod Avatar
    Kylopod

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    I think the key is that as LGBT rights have expanded and things like same-sex marriage being normalized, there is a need to find a new wedge. And that wedge has been trans rights, and drag has been pulled into that debate.

    Clearly. But what’s odd is that it requires them to become outraged about things they’ve really never cared about before. So there’s an element of extreme backsliding, even if it’s done using a strategy that tries to adapt to the reality that LGBT people have far more legal rights and social acceptance than they did 30 years ago. The result is a hodgepodge of rhetoric that amounts to a kind of gaslighting where they pretend to be somewhat enlightened on the issue in contrast to their forebears, with tokens like George Santos or Caitlyn Jenner helping provide cover. This is particularly with regard to Republicans who have been caught either having performed in drag themselves or attended drag events, and they react to the revelations by distinguishing between “good” drag and “bad” drag. The distinction in fact is meaningless, but it gives them the power to decide who they want to target.

    The historical analogue this most reminds me of is the Nazi campaign against “degenerate art.” For instance, despite the Nazis’ general hatred of jazz, that didn’t stop them from attempting to create their own jazz band.

    1
  18. drj Avatar
    drj

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    I agree that voters bear a lot of responsibility

    My point was more that political candidates simply deliver what (some) voters want. If there is blame to be assigned, it should fall on the candidates who should (and do) know better.

    @MarkedMan:

    the vast majority of voters simply vote for their team

    But some vote for their team because they “know” that abortion is bad and low taxes are good for them and people like them, in which case there exists at least some relation between their votes and desired real-world outcomes.

    I would argue that there are also voters who are already being satisfied with being told that abortion is bad and low taxes are good – and keep being satisfied regardless of what actually happens regarding abortion and tax legislation.

    The latter category cares more about short-term satisfaction (being acknowledged) than about long-term changes in the legislative and regulatory landscape.

    People like that will be perfectly happy with ineffective, pro-forma legislation.

  19. DK Avatar
    DK

    I’m actually surprised RuPaul and Drag Race are escaping the backlash mostly unscathed, especially since Drag Race is so popular with minors. I haven’t heard of DragCon being protested or of calls for networks to pull or censor the show. The Drag Race empire is an increasingly global juggernaut.

    I can’t imagine why; seems like low hanging fruit for Klanned Karenhood types. But maybe RuPaul has been around so long — he was famous when I was a kid in the 90s and he’s still famous — that he’s too big to fail.

    1
  20. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @DK:

    You can’t win a culture war through legislation, you have to change hearts and minds — especially of the next generation.

    That is true, but that doesn’t minimize the importance of legislation to those on the receiving end of bigots. As Hillary Clinton has pointed out on a number of occasions (my paraphrasing), “legislation changes lives whether or not you’ve changed anyone’s heart”. When the law was changed to allow same sex marriage it had immediate impact on those who needed health insurance from a partner’s employer or whose partner was in the hospital or who had died. I remember very clearly the example brought up in court when defending gay marriage legislation of a women kicked out of her home literally hours after her decades-long partner passed away from cancer, by ignorant bigoted vile relatives. It’s all well and good to worry about hearts and minds, but if the law had her back there would have been no need for kind hearts from the bigoted relatives.

    3
  21. Neil Hudelson Avatar
    Neil Hudelson

    From the article:

    have passed watered down laws [….] in the case of three states that did manage to pass meaningful restrictions, laws have been temporarily halted by federal judges.

    Ok but those are pretty big exceptions to the article’s thesis. Every year in general assemblies across the nation, stupid unconstitutional bills are introduced. The majority never make it out of committee, usually by the efforts of legislative leaders to head then off at the pass. Over and over again that did not happen this year, often despite leaders best efforts.

    This is not the first year anti drag laws have been introduced. You don’t hear about them at all previously because, at the time, they weren’t salient political issues. This year, instead, hundreds more anti lgbt laws than avg (including drag) were introduced, many made it out of committee and into general debate. Some assemblies were able to water down the bills before passage but they did pass. Many others passed anti drag bills but were not able to muster the 2/3rds threshold to overcome the veto. Still others passed drag laws that were signed by the governor only for courts to have to weigh in.

    This is a *lot* more legislative action than is normal regarding drag.

    1
  22. Neil Hudelson Avatar
    Neil Hudelson

    From the article:

    have passed watered down laws [….] in the case of three states that did manage to pass meaningful restrictions, laws have been temporarily halted by federal judges.

    Ok but those are pretty big exceptions to the article’s thesis. Every year in general assemblies across the nation, stupid unconstitutional bills are introduced. The majority never make it out of committee, usually by the efforts of legislative leaders to head then off at the pass. Over and over again that did not happen this year, often despite leaders best efforts.

    This is not the first year anti drag laws have been introduced. You don’t hear about them at all previously because, at the time, they weren’t salient political issues. This year, instead, hundreds more anti lgbt laws than avg (including drag) were introduced, many made it out of committee and into general debate. Some assemblies were able to water down the bills before passage but they did pass. Many others passed anti drag bills but were not able to muster the 2/3rds threshold to overcome the veto. Still others passed drag laws that were signed by the governor only for courts to have to weigh in.

    This is a *lot* more legislative action than is normal regarding drag.

    2
  23. Kylopod Avatar
    Kylopod

    @DK:

    But maybe RuPaul has been around so long — he was famous when I was a kid in the 90s and he’s still famous — that he’s too big to fail.

    I’m sure that’s part of it, but (and this could be me misremembering) I don’t remember him ever being some massive lightning rod for the right back in the ’90s, certainly not when compared to some other LGBT figures of that time such as Ellen DeGeneres, whose coming out provoked the Southern Baptist Convention’s boycott against Disney.

  24. Roger Avatar
    Roger

    @Kylopod: MAGA folks don’t have to hate Mrs. Doubtfire because that movie wasn’t about someone dressing in drag. Robin Williams was a nice heterosexual man who dressed as a woman for a good cause, not a drag queen. It’s the same as the evangelical Christian women who have medical procedures that result in a pregnancy being terminated–those procedures by definition aren’t abortions, because these are good, pro-life women who would never abort a child.

    “Drag queen,” like “abortion,” is not a term with a static definition. It’s a slur that can be trotted out when needed, with the same actions counting or not counting as “drag” depending on whodunnit. Being committed to MAGA requires a Humpty Dumpty take on language, but criminal statutes require words to have meaning. And that is at least part of the reason that when laws against dressing in drag are passed they will almost invariably be too vague to pass constitutional muster.

    5
  25. Daryl Avatar
    Daryl

    @Steven L. Taylor:
    @Slugger:
    Now you are trying to apply logic to MAGA.
    Good luck.

    1
  26. Kazzy Avatar
    Kazzy

    @Slugger: Dan Savage has long said that if clowns molested children at the rate youth pastors do, it’d be illegal to take your kids to the circus. He’s been saying this since long before any of the organized anti-drag hate began. How ironically prescient he was.

    2
  27. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    And when there are only two viable choices…

    I’m not sure why you say this. The range of people running in the primary is actually very diverse on both the Republican and Democratic side. Even in a state that is pure red or blue, there is often a very wide range of choices in the primary. You might argue that most people don’t vote in the primary and while that may be true, another way to look at it is that people who don’t vote in the primary are more than happy to let others pick the “team captain”. They will sit out the actual section and display their team loyalty when it comes to the general.

    1
  28. Just nutha ignint cracker Avatar
    Just nutha ignint cracker

    @Kylopod:

    Clearly. But what’s odd is that it requires them to become outraged about things they’ve really never cared about before.

    But it seems to me that the same could be said about abortion before the rise of the “religious right.” I think the damage–both to Christianity and to Democracy in America–was when Ralph Reed and those other yahoos started telling fundies and evangelicals “we should be the ones running this show” and congregations and individuals bought in.

    Elsewhere, Jim Brown 32 makes the case for liberal evangelicals to start activating the pulpits to oppose the push right. Liberal Christianity already made that mistake when I was a child. The payoff was that I attend a congregation where at 71 years old, I am in the youngest 10% of the congregation. I don’t think the religious left is in a position to address this issue, but if JB32 thinks I’m wrong, he needs to find a church and make his case when he returns from his escort gig in PR. (And enjoy your stay there!)

    1
  29. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @MarkedMan: I was referring to the general.

    Edit: and was specifically agree with the point you made in your initial comment. I was really just agreeing with you.

  30. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:

    Elsewhere, Jim Brown 32 makes the case for liberal evangelicals to start activating the pulpits to oppose the push right. Liberal Christianity already made that mistake when I was a child. The payoff was that I attend a congregation where at 71 years old, I am in the youngest 10% of the congregation. I don’t think the religious left is in a position to address this issue,

    If the only cola offered is Pepsi, people will order Pepsi.

    If the only Christian Church on offer is hateful, people will go to the hateful church and become fore hateful.

    We need liberal, social-justice oriented Christian churches.

    Not sure why yours is such a failure.

    but if JB32 thinks I’m wrong, he needs to find a church and make his case when he returns from his escort gig in PR.

    I was very wrong about his job. No judgment, it’s difficult work and a lot of emotional labor as well, I was just wrong and am a little surprised.

    1
  31. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    Focusing on the unconstitutional drag bans is really minimizing the damage that the right wing is doing.

    They’re also banning all gender affirming care for folks under 25 in some states, and putting lots of other hurdles on access even for people over that age.

    Note that this is not just banning surgery for minors, or even hormones, but things like puberty blockers. Arguably therapy as well, given how broad these laws are.

    Then you have the “Don’t Say Gay” bills based on Florida’s, with the book bans, and the effects on education.

    3
  32. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Gustopher:

    Focusing on the unconstitutional drag bans is really minimizing the damage that the right wing is doing.

    Sigh.

    Can I point out that it is kind of impossible for a blog post to do All the Things?

  33. Just nutha ignint cracker Avatar
    Just nutha ignint cracker

    @Gustopher: You make an interesting, if too simple IMO, observation about the course of religion in Murka. As pathetically self-centered as Christianity was (and probably always has been considering the raw materials available) back before the Moral Majority, things only became worse in the wake of it. For my take on the question of the purposes to which Christianity should be applied, reforming people (who want to be reformed, of course, if you don’t, by all means, go in peace), takes precedence over reforming society, reforming structures, reforming governments (Jesus appears to have grown up during more corrupt eras of Roman government, and yet his advice was “Give Caesar what’s his” not “petition the Senate for our freedom”), and ruling. “Liberal Christianity”‘s shifting emphasis to social gospel theology, equality, anti-war philosophies, and other goals created some good (albeit small and peripheral) shifts in the social landscape. Good for them! Taking their eyes of the “prime directive”*–go into all the world and make disciples–resulted in fragmentation in individual nations and congregations as well as among sects and denominations. The only good point is that such fragmentation will eventually happen to modern evangelicalism–except to the extent that it finds the power to survive organizationally in the way Catholicism has–may well be the only good feature of the phenomenon. Thank you for giving me the chance to flesh out what I’d referred to in my previous post. (And even this is probably still far too short to be as clear as I’d like.)

    *(a sop to Star Dreck Trek fans)

  34. Kylopod Avatar
    Kylopod

    @Just nutha ignint cracker: Are you talking about liberal Christians or liberal evangelicals? To my knowledge most of the former aren’t the latter.

  35. Kylopod Avatar
    Kylopod

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:

    But it seems to me that the same could be said about abortion before the rise of the “religious right.”

    It could. The anti-abortion movement in the ’70s was initially almost entirely comprised of Catholics, until the rise of the (so-called) Moral Majority in the later part of the decade which brought it to white evangelicals in the South who needed a cause to rally around after the collapse of Jim Crow.

    But anti-abortion is a much more powerful rallying point than I believe hatred of drag ever will be.

  36. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @Steven L. Taylor: If they were unconnected things, I would agree with you, but it’s just one prong of a multi-pronged attack. And you’re focusing on the weakest prong.

    This all strikes me as an interesting contrast between an awful lot of noisy rhetoric resulting in a lot less legislative action than one might have assumed was the case. It is especially surprising because one would think in many of these states getting stronger legislation passed would not have been that difficult.

    You may see it as Republicans haphazardly doing shit they don’t really care about, but I think it’s more likely borderline incompetent Republicans throwing whatever shit they can scoop together at the wall to see what sticks.

    It’s weird to single out one tree in the forest when the forest is so visibly on fire.

    What point were you trying to make? I can tie this to the attack on queer rights, or the general failure of the Republicans to get things done (remember “repeal and replace ObamaCare?” Or the Muslim Ban? Or the Wall?), or useless laws that get headlines having the same amount of substance as the hearings into made up scandals…

    Huh. This is the first of your posts in as long as I can remember (excluding tab dumps) where I honestly can’t see what point you’re making. Perhaps I am tired.

    1
  37. Just nutha ignint cracker Avatar
    Just nutha ignint cracker

    @Kylopod: I’m disinclined to believe in liberal evangelicals. That part of the comment mix is in response to JB32’s seeming call out to liberal evangelicals to join the war of words with the MAGAts.

  38. Just nutha ignint cracker Avatar
    Just nutha ignint cracker

    @Kylopod:

    But anti-abortion is a much more powerful rallying point than I believe hatred of drag ever will be.

    Certainly true, but my focus is that until Reed and company, Christians were certainly conservative but congregations, at least to my recollection, were significantly more apolitical. Abortion became something that fundies and evangelicals rallied around and pulled them into the briar patch.

  39. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Gustopher: It is utterly fair to note that my point is unclear. It is, after all, a fairly short post.

    So while I am always prepared to try and explain myself, perhaps you can understand how disheartening it is to try and produce content for regular readers and then have regular readers give me a highly uncharitable reading of a post.

    2
  40. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @Steven L. Taylor: I meant it less uncharitably than it came out. I’m just tired and grumpy.

    2
  41. wr Avatar
    wr

    @Steven L. Taylor: ” the place in American society where we know there has been long-term, repeated sexual abuse of children has been in churches, which are allegedly safe spaces.”

    Not to mention youth sports, which we are constantly told is the basis of a healthy American life.

    1
  42. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Gustopher: Fair enough. A bit tired and grumpy on my end as well.

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