Pronoun/Gender Wars Continue Apace

[california boy]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

I find it troubling that limiting minors' access to sexualized events is controversial, and that a federal judge stopped it, and that the decision by the federal appellate court to reverse it was sort of close (8-5).

Thanks,

-Smac

Do you find it troubling at all when the state starts to take over and decide what is appropriate or not appropriate rather than let the parents of their own children decide how they raise their children?  

For example should the state force children to read the Bible even if the parents find that to be inappropriate and goes against their own religious beliefs?   

How about forcing children to read anti-Mormon literature because the state thinks that Joseph Smith was grooming children and forcing high school girls to marry him.  Would you find that offensive for your own children to experince attacks on your own moral and religious beliefs?  Or is it only appropriate when it agrees with your own way you choose to raise your children.

THIS is what you are advocating for.  The take over of the state on issues that are best left to parents to decide what is appropriate for their children and what is actually a sexualized event.  Do you have ANY REAL DATA that does show children are being sexualized by drag shows?   What actually is the result of a child seeing a drag show or a drag queen reading a book in the library on a child?  Just how many children have had proven harm witnessing such events and what does that harm even look like?

[smac97]

1 hour ago, california boy said:

Quote

I find it troubling that limiting minors' access to sexualized events is controversial, and that a federal judge stopped it, and that the decision by the federal appellate court to reverse it was sort of close (8-5).

Do you find it troubling at all when the state starts to take over and decide what is appropriate or not appropriate rather than let the parents of their own children decide how they raise their children?  

I do think parental authority should be the default, and state intervention in family decisions deserves close scrutiny.  Neither of these considerations is absolute.  We as a society already accept a number of limits that apply even when parents might consent:

1. Minimum age for alcohol
2. Restrictions on tattoos and certain body modifications
3. Child labor laws?
4. Prohibitions on exposing minors to obscenity or pornography

Do you agree or disagree with these other instances of the state "tak{ing} over and decid{ing} what is appropriate or not appropriate" for children "rather than let the parents ... decide"?  I would assume you agree with them, but I am open to correction.

In any event, the debate seems to really be about where the line belongs, not whether any line can exist. I am open to arguments that this particular statute is drawn too broadly or too vaguely. I just do not accept the premise that the state must stay entirely out of the question of what sexualized content is appropriate for children in public or commercial settings.  I would be interested in hearing more from you about this topic.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

For example should the state force children to read the Bible even if the parents find that to be inappropriate and goes against their own religious beliefs?

How about forcing children to read anti-Mormon literature because the state thinks that Joseph Smith was grooming children and forcing high school girls to marry him.  Would you find that offensive for your own children to experince attacks on your own moral and religious beliefs?  Or is it only appropriate when it agrees with your own way you choose to raise your children.

That’s a useful test of the principle, so let’s take it seriously.

Forcing children to read the Bible (or any religious text), or "anti-Mormon literature," either of which being against their parents’ beliefs, would be a clear establishment of religion and a direct violation of both parental rights and the Free Exercise Clause. The state would be affirmatively compelling a particular religious practice or viewpoint.

Restricting minors’ access to sexualized live performances is a different category. It does not compel anyone to adopt a belief, practice a religion, or consume any particular content. It sets a boundary on what commercial or public adult-oriented sexual material may be presented to children. That kind of age-based restriction already exists in many areas (obscenity laws, pornography, alcohol, tobacco, certain performances) without being treated as equivalent to compelled religious instruction.

One can consistently support parental primacy on matters of religious upbringing while also supporting some outer limits on the sexual content to which children can be exposed in public or commercial settings. The two are not the same exercise of state power.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

THIS is what you are advocating for.  The take over of the state on issues that are best left to parents to decide what is appropriate for their children and what is actually a sexualized event.  

Respectfully, no, I am not advocating for that.  I am not advocating a “takeover” of parenting. I am defending the idea that the state may set some outer limits on the sexual content to which children can be exposed in public or commercial settings—just as it already does with obscenity, pornography, alcohol, and certain performances. Parental judgment remains primary in most areas, but that does not mean it is the only consideration when the question is what adults may present to other people’s children in shared spaces.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

Do you have ANY REAL DATA that does show children are being sexualized by drag shows?   What actually is the result of a child seeing a drag show or a drag queen reading a book in the library on a child?  Just how many children have had proven harm witnessing such events and what does that harm even look like?

The law in question is not limited to “drag shows.” It targets all live performances (not just drag shows) that meet a statutory definition involving nudity, sexual conduct, lewdness, etc., when those performances are deemed unsuitable for the age of the child present. Some events marketed as family-friendly have included highly sexualized elements; others have not. Treating every drag performance as identical is no more accurate than treating every restriction as a ban on two moms in a picture book.

Could you clarify your perspective?  If a drag show does not violate the statute, then the statute would not apply.  Do you therefore endorse drag shows which do violate the statute?  Drag shows depicting or simulating:

• Nudity
• Sexual conduct
• Sexual excitement
• Specific sexual activities (as defined under Florida law)
• Lewd conduct
• Lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts?

Or putting aside specific endorsement, do you think children should be exposed to these behaviors?

Or is your perspective more about leaving such matters to parents?  If so, what are the parameters you envision?  Are parental rights inviolate in your view?  If not, what limitations do you think can or should exist?

As for quantified “proven harm” from every possible exposure: that is a high bar that we do not require in most other areas of child-protection law. We do not demand a precise body count of damaged children before restricting minors’ access to pornography, strip clubs, or other adult sexual material.

The question is whether the state may draw any age-based line around sexualized live performances at all. I think it may. Reasonable minds can disagree about where exactly that line should sit and how clearly a statute must define it.

Thank you for sharing your perspective.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited 5 hours ago by smac97

[Analytics]

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

So what are your thoughts.  Per the article, children cannot attend adult live performances depicting or simulating:

• Nudity
• Sexual conduct
• Sexual excitement
• Specific sexual activities (as defined under Florida law)
• Lewd conduct
• Lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts

Do you think parents should be allowed to have their children attend adult live performances which feature these sorts of things?  Or is your position more of a "I just think parental rights should supersede governmental oversight" sort of thing?

I can't tell whether you want to have a serious conversation about this.

Florida already had lots of laws that protect children from the things you find objectionable. This new law is clearly about identity politics and throwing red meat to voters who get worked up over imagined social issues. This law is in the same broad category as the proposed F.U.R.R.I.E.S Act in Texas that makes it illegal for school kids to use a litter box--it is addressing made-up problems that are used to manipulate voters. 

Hamburger Mary’s, a venue that hosts both adult-only and family-friendly drag performances, challenged the constitutionality of the Florida law. The district court, two of the three judges on the original appellate panel, and five judges in the later en banc dissent concluded that Hamburger Mary’s had shown a substantial likelihood of success on the merits and that enforcement should therefore be enjoined while the case was litigated.

Those judges identified serious concerns involving vagueness, an unworkable age-specific standard, overbreadth, a severe chilling effect on protected expression, and broad regulatory discretion that could permit arbitrary or viewpoint-selective enforcement.

So here is what I would like to hear from you: Was this law actually necessary? What concrete deficiency in Florida’s existing laws did it fix?

And do you think it is well crafted when judged by ordinary standards for sound legislation: a real and identifiable problem, clear definitions, workable age calibration, proportional penalties, appropriate respect for parental autonomy, and safeguards against viewpoint-selective enforcement?

Edited 5 hours ago by Analytics

[smac97]

35 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Quote

So what are your thoughts.  Per the article, children cannot attend adult live performances depicting or simulating:

• Nudity
• Sexual conduct
• Sexual excitement
• Specific sexual activities (as defined under Florida law)
• Lewd conduct
• Lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts

Do you think parents should be allowed to have their children attend adult live performances which feature these sorts of things?  Or is your position more of a "I just think parental rights should supersede governmental oversight" sort of thing?

I can't tell whether you want to have a serious conversation about this.

I do want to have a serious conversation.  Could you explain what part(s) of my comments are causing confusion on this point?

35 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Florida already had lots of laws that protect children from the things you find objectionable.  This new law is clearly about identity politics and throwing red meat to voters who get worked up over imagined social issues. This law is in the same broad category as the proposed F.U.R.R.I.E.S Act in Texas that makes it illegal for school kids to use a litter box--it is addressing made-up problems that are used to manipulate voters. 

Existing laws against obscenity and harmful material to minors are relevant, and it’s fair to ask whether a new statute is necessary or carefully drawn. Legislatures sometimes pass overlapping or politically timed measures; that criticism is not unique to this issue.

That said, equating a law that restricts minors’ access to performances meeting a statutory definition of sexual or lewd content with a proposal about litter boxes in schools is a category error. One involves regulating adult-oriented sexualized performances in the presence of children. The other addresses a largely anecdotal or satirical claim that never reflected widespread policy. Treating them as the same kind of “made-up problem” collapses distinct questions into a single partisan narrative.

I am willing to examine whether this particular statute is vague, overbroad, or redundant with prior law. I am less persuaded by the claim that any effort to set age-based limits on sexualized live performances must be dismissed as pure identity politics.  Consequently, please identify which preexisting Florida statutes which you think already cover the same ground as the above-referenced statute covers.

The underlying interest—limiting children’s exposure to certain sexual content in public or commercial settings—is not new, and it is a legitimate governmental objective.  Children really are being exposed to highly sexualized content.  While reasonable disagreement exists about the means and the drafting of the statute, that is different from saying the entire subject is imaginary.

35 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Hamburger Mary’s, a venue that hosts both adult-only and family-friendly drag performances, challenged the constitutionality of the Florida law. The district court, two of the three judges on the original appellate panel, and five judges in the later en banc dissent concluded that Hamburger Mary’s had shown a substantial likelihood of success on the merits and that enforcement should therefore be enjoined while the case was litigated.

Those judges identified serious concerns involving vagueness, an unworkable age-specific standard, overbreadth, a severe chilling effect on protected expression, and broad regulatory discretion that could permit arbitrary or viewpoint-selective enforcement.

That’s a fair description of the procedural history. The district court and a majority of the original panel found a substantial likelihood of success on the vagueness and overbreadth claims and issued a broad injunction. Five judges on the en banc court agreed with that view in dissent.

The en banc majority of eight, however, disagreed. It held that the statute’s use of “lewd,” as construed under existing Florida law, and its age-variable standard did not render the Act facially unconstitutional, and it vacated the injunction. Close divisions among judges are common on difficult First Amendment questions; they do not themselves establish that the losing side’s position is the correct one. The controlling decision at this stage is the en banc majority’s.

35 minutes ago, Analytics said:

So here is what I would like to hear from you: Was this law actually necessary? What concrete deficiency in Florida’s existing laws did it fix?

That is a legitimate policy question, and it is distinct from the constitutional one the en banc court decided.

I don't think I have claimed that the statute was the only possible way to address the issue, or that Florida’s prior obscenity and harmful-to-minors laws were a complete nullity. Legislatures often add overlapping or more specific tools when they conclude existing provisions are hard to apply to live performances, slow to enforce, or uncertain in scope when the event is marketed as entertainment rather than explicit adult material.

Whether this particular law was necessary is a judgment call about legislative priorities and drafting. Reasonable people can conclude it was redundant, poorly tailored, or politically motivated. My point has been narrower: the underlying interest in setting some age-based limits on sexualized live performances is not inherently illegitimate, and the en banc court found the statute survived the facial constitutional challenge that was brought. Necessity and constitutionality are related but not identical questions. I am open to arguments that better-drafted or more targeted tools would have been preferable.

35 minutes ago, Analytics said:

And do you think it is well crafted when judged by ordinary standards for sound legislation: a real and identifiable problem, clear definitions, workable age calibration, proportional penalties, appropriate respect for parental autonomy, and safeguards against viewpoint-selective enforcement?

Those are reasonable criteria for evaluating any statute.  I'm not sure the statute in question scores perfectly on all of them.  

Clearer definitions and tighter tailoring are almost always preferable. Age-variable standards can create practical uncertainty for venues. Parental autonomy deserves due weight and deference (due, but not unlimited). Any law that touches expressive conduct needs safeguards against selective or viewpoint-driven enforcement.  The dissent emphasized these concerns, and they are worth taking seriously in application.

My position is not that the statute is a model of legislative craftsmanship. Rather, I think the state has a legitimate interest in placing some outer limits on sexualized live performances involving minors.  I also think that existing - and constitutionally valid - categories of regulation (obscenity, harmful-to-minors material, age restrictions on adult entertainment) already reflect that interest, and that the en banc court found the facial constitutional challenge unlikely to succeed. One can accept those points while still preferring narrower drafting, stronger definitional clarity, or greater deference to parental decision-making in close cases.

So while criticizing the law's language or design is fair, but I think that treating the entire subject as illegitimate or imaginary is a different claim.

A few questions for you:

• Do you believe there should be any age-based legal limits on the sexual content of live performances that minors can attend, or is your position that parental consent should be the sole and final authority in every case?
• If Florida’s prior obscenity and harmful-to-minors statutes already fully solved the problem, why do similar age restrictions exist in many other states and localities for adult entertainment venues, strip clubs, and certain performances? Are those also unnecessary?
• CB compared this law to forcing children to read the Bible. What is the closest real-world parallel you see: is restricting minors from a sexualized stage performance more like compelled religious exercise, or more like existing limits on minors’ access to pornography, alcohol, or adult businesses?

This is an important and difficult topic.  I appreciate your efforts to treat it seriously.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited 4 hours ago by smac97

[SeekingUnderstanding]

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Nevertheless, the existence of hard cases or bad-faith actors does not mean we abandon the underlying category.  That a concept cannot be defined with exacting precision does not mean it cannot be defined at all.  We already have legal concepts like “obscenity,” “harmful to minors,” “indecent exposure,” and age-based restrictions on alcohol, tobacco, and certain performances. Those terms are also contested at the margins, yet most people still accept that some line exists between material appropriate for adults and material that should not be presented to children in public or commercial settings.

The examples you raise (books depicting same-sex parents, or a same-sex kiss in Lightyear) are not the same as sexually explicit or lewd live adult performances. Conflating ordinary representation of gay people with adult sexual content is, I think, a category error that makes productive disagreement harder. One can support age restrictions on sexualized entertainment without supporting the removal of books that simply show two moms or two dads.

I'm sorry, but I don't think that the Florida legislature is acting in good faith. Instead they are threatening lawfare to rein in acts that go against their religious principles. If they were really concerned about lewd conduct and "grooming" why have they done nothing to prevent children from watching rated R movies with their parents?

[smac97]

15 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I'm sorry, but I don't think that the Florida legislature is acting in good faith. Instead they are threatening lawfare to rein in acts that go against their religious principles. If they were really concerned about lewd conduct and "grooming" why have they done nothing to prevent children from watching rated R movies with their parents?

I understand the skepticism about legislative motives. Politicians of every stripe mix principle, politics, and constituency pressure, and it is fair to question whether a particular bill is primarily about child protection or about "signaling."

That said, the comparison to R-rated movies watched with parents does not seem to work.  An R-rated film is a recorded work that parents can preview, control, and contextualize in private. A live performance in a commercial or public venue is different in setting, immediacy, and the degree of parental control once the child is present. Existing law already treats live adult entertainment, obscenity, and age-restricted venues differently from private viewing of movies for related reasons.

A person can criticize the Florida statute as poorly drafted, politically timed, or broader than necessary, but I think he could do that without treating every age-based limit on sexualized live performances as illegitimate religious lawfare.  However, the reverse is also true: existing gaps or inconsistencies in how other forms of content are regulated do not automatically prove that any restriction in this area is pretextual.

I would be interested in your responses to the questions I posed above:

• Do you believe there should be any age-based legal limits on the sexual content of live performances that minors can attend, or is your position that parental consent should be the sole and final authority in every case?
• If Florida’s prior obscenity and harmful-to-minors statutes already fully solved the problem, why do similar age restrictions exist in many other states and localities for adult entertainment venues, strip clubs, and certain performances? Are those also unnecessary?
• CB compared this law to forcing children to read the Bible. What is the closest real-world parallel you see: is restricting minors from a sexualized stage performance more like compelled religious exercise, or more like existing limits on minors’ access to pornography, alcohol, or adult businesses?

Thank you for your participation.

-Smac