On the third day of Pride Month, Federal Court Judge Thomas L. Parker has ruled that Tennessee’s Adult Entertainment Act is unconstitutional.

The ruling, released early Saturday morning, found that the bill was an unconstitutional restriction on free speech.

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The law banned any “adult cabaret performance,” including those by a “male or female impersonator,” on public property and in places children may be present. The law was scheduled to take effect April 1.

“Let there be no mistake about this Court’s recognition that Tennessee has a compelling government interest in protecting its minor population,” Parker, U.S. District Court judge for West Tennessee, wrote in his conclusion. “Scores of concerned Tennesseans asked the Court to uphold the Adult Entertainment Act because their State supposedly enacted it to protect their children. Tennesseans deserve to know that their State’s defense of the AEA primarily involved a request for the Court to alter the AEA by changing the meaning of ‘minors’ to a ‘reasonable 17-year-old minor.’

“In other words, while its citizens believed this powerful law would protect all children, the State’s lawyers told the Court this law will only protect 17-year-olds. To rewrite this law would not only violate the separation-of-powers principle, but it would also offer perverse incentives for legislators to continue their troubling trend of abdicating their responsibilities in exercising ‘considered legislative judgment.’”

The Memphis-based Friends of George’s theater company filed the lawsuit March 27 in federal court for the Western District of Tennessee. The suit challenged the state Adult Entertainment Act, commonly referred to as the “drag ban” law, on First Amendment grounds.

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The suit led to a temporary restraining order against enforcement of the law; the restraining order was in effect until June 6.

“Assume an individual, who identifies as male, holds a guitar and wears an ‘Elvis Presley’ costume that is revealing without being legally obscene, but indecent enough to be potentially harmful to minors,” Parker wrote in his decision.

“If this individual ‘performs’ by telling jokes in Elvis’ voice in ‘a location where adult cabaret entertainment could be viewed by a person who is not an adult,’ it is unclear whether this person would violate the AEA.”

As the two-day trial ended, attorneys for the state asked that if an injunction was issued by Parker, it would declare the unconstitutionality of the legislation apply only to the plaintiff in this case and just in Shelby County.

“I’ve literally never heard an argument like that,” attorney for the theatre company, Brice Timmons, said after the trial. “That’s not how that works.”

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Parker previously ruled the bill was too vague and leaves the door open for personal interpretation on what may be obscene, which led to the temporary restraining order.

Friends of George’s board member Vanessa Rodley said earlier this week that if the ruling came Friday, it would be a great moment for the Mid-South Pride festival.

“It has so much weight to all of us, and it will only elevate the celebrations,” Rodley said Wednesday, May 31. “This is a beacon. If they agree with us and side with us, it’s a huge thing that will hopefully start a rippling effect.

“If we can help everybody kind of see the path and how to navigate through this, it’s an amazing thing for our community.”