Idaho Republicans may try to ban public drag performances next year

DC High Heel Drag Queen Race 2014
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The president of Idaho Family Policy Center has promised that a bill banning drag performances from all public venues will be introduced at the beginning of the state legislature’s next session in January. Blaine Conzatti told the Idaho Capital Sun that the bill has been drafted, but he declined to share its text and would not name the legislators who worked on it.

But a petition circulated by the Idaho Family Policy Center ahead of Boise Pride in September demanding lawmakers prohibit drag performances in public spaces may provide a preview of the language used in the bill. It cited a section of the state’s constitution that says that the “legislature should further all wise and well-directed efforts for the promotion of temperance and morality.”

“According to the Idaho State Constitution, the state legislature carries the responsibility of enacting legislation that promotes morality, public virtue, and the purity of the home,” the petition states. “Therefore, we call on our state lawmakers to implement legal reform that would prohibit drag performances in public places where children are present.”

“There were many Supreme Court decisions from the 19th century dealing with public virtue and how sexual practices should not take place in public because it degraded public virtue,” Conzatti told the Idaho Capital Sun.

Conzatti, whose group has been involved in…

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