Trump-appointed federal judge rejects Tennessee's anti-drag law as too broad, too vague

A federal judge says Tennessee’s first-in-the-nation law designed to place strict limits on drag shows is unconstitutional.

In a 70-page ruling handed down late Friday night, U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker wrote that the law was both “unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad." He also added that the statute encouraged “discriminatory enforcement.”

“There is no question that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. But there is a difference between material that is ‘obscene’ in the vernacular, and material that is ‘obscene’ under the law,” stated Parker, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. “Simply put, no majority of the Supreme Court has held that sexually explicit — but not obscene — speech receives less protection than political, artistic, or scientific speech.”