Let’s get real. It’s the gay factor in drag shows that bothers NC GOP lawmakers | Opinion

Members of the North Carolina General Assembly are now choosing to add drag shows to their culture war agenda, as another notch in their homophobic belt.

For generations, venues catering to gay patrons have featured drag shows, in which bewigged men clad in bizarre distortions of feminine couture cavort onstage as fictive personas, e.g., “Crystal Decanter” and “Hedda Lettuce” and “Brandy Alexander.” Most feature the antics of enthusiastic amateurs having a hilariously good time, to the delight of their audiences.

At their best, some of these are meticulously crafted, highly professional performances, as in the regularly televised “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

In their uncomplicated innocence, drag shows have not been freighted with any purported sociopolitical significance. Unlike the transgender issue, in which people are struggling with gender dysphoria, cross-dressing “drag queens” are not contending with personal identity crises; they are playing “dress up” for the fun of it. Nevertheless, our political overseers assert that drag shows, if performed in public, may appeal to “prurient interests,” thereby offending public decency. How they reach that conclusion is a marvel of convolution.

In addition to drag shows, the proposed law lumps together under the heading of prohibited “adult live entertainment” performances featuring “topless dancers, exotic dancers, strippers.” Untangling the meaning of “prurient interests” in the drag show context, much less offering credible examples of what would constitute an appeal to “prurient interests,” is a stretch too far.

Drag queens dance and sing, fully clothed, unlike topless dancers and strippers in the business of provocatively revealing their private body parts. So where, conceivably, could be the prurience in drag? Who could say, and then at one’s ill-defined legal peril.

But what of the other component of the proposed legislation, which forbids drag shows at any location, public or private, if “minors” are present. And again, the ill-defined interdiction addresses “entertainment” that allegedly “appeals to a prurient interest.” The obviously intended targets (as in several other states embarked on this censorious mission) are “drag story hours,” sponsored events at which men dressed in extreme female caricature read stories to children. The proposed legislation purports to protect not just young children, but anyone under age 18 who, it is presumed, might be offended by the sight of a man dressed as a woman.

Although ham-handedly advertised as a more general effort at stamping out various “adult live entertainments,” the patently obvious target of the legislation is any manifestation of “gayness” as may be embodied in drag shows, and especially drag story hours. That intent is obvious from the fact that the proposal is, at base, a misguided redundancy. Any legitimate concern about genuine affronts to decency or morality is already responsibly and clearly addressed by the N.C. General Statutes.

Article 26 of Subchapter VII addresses “Offenses Against Public Morality and Decency.” It prohibits “obscene literature and exhibits,” consisting of “patently offensive depiction of sexual conduct.” It prohibits “indecent exposure,” the exposure of “private parts.” And it explicitly defines and prohibits “material harmful to minors,” i.e., any “material or performance that depicts sexually explicit nudity or sexual activity.”

So, why House Bill 673? For the first time, it would single out for suspicion and prohibition a category of “entertainment” not previously considered a potential threat to public morality and decency, i.e., “male or female impersonators” engaged in drag performances. In short, it is the “gay” ingredient that, once again, has attracted the punitive ire of the culture warriors.

Dick Robinson is an 85-year-old retired lawyer who lives in Chapel Hill, a “born-and-bred elderly gay citizen of North Carolina..”