Federal Judge Halts Tennessee Drag Ban Law Temporarily.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a Tennessee law aimed at restricting public drag performances, hours before it was set to go into effect. The law, which makes no explicit mention of drag but forbids “adult cabaret” and performances on public property by topless, go-go or exotic dancers, strippers, or male or female impersonators that are “harmful to minors,” was challenged by a Memphis theater company. The judge agreed to delay the law’s implementation for at least 14 days, acknowledging that the company’s concerns about upcoming performances were not “trifling issues for a theater company — certainly not in the free, civil society we hold our country to be.”