A federal judge has temporarily blocked a Tennessee city’s law prohibiting drag performances from taking place on public property during an upcoming Pride event.
Chief U.S. District Court Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. ordered in a Friday ruling that officials in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, are prohibited from enforcing the ordinance during the BoroPride Festival.
The judge’s order came in response to a lawsuit filed earlier this month by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee (ACLU-TN) on behalf of the Tennessee Equality Project, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBT causes and has hosted the BoroPride Festival since 2016.
The order states that the city of Murfreesboro and the Equality Project reached an agreement that the city will not enforce the ordinance during the Pride festival on Oct. 28.
The lawsuit alleges the ordinance discriminates against the LGBT community and violates the First Amendment by chilling free speech rights.
The ACLU said the order “confirms that the community’s free speech rights will be protected at the BoroPride Festival” as the lawsuit continues to be heard in court.
“We are relieved that the court has taken action to ensure that Murfreesboro’s discriminatory ordinance will not be enforced during the BoroPride festival. We look forward to a safe, joyful celebration of Murfreesboro’s LGBTQ+ community,” Tennessee Equality Project Executive Director Chris Sanders said in a statement.
The legal challenge is the latest development in the ongoing political battle over LGBT activities inside Tennessee, where the state’s conservative leaders have sought to limit events where drag performers may appear, restrict classroom conversations about gender and sexuality, and ban gender-altering procedures.
Conservative activists alleged that drag performances that took place during the 2022 Pride event resulted in the “illegal sexualization of kids.”
In late August, the ACLU filed a similar lawsuit after the Blount County district attorney warned Pride festival organizers in eastern Tennessee that he planned to enforce a newly enacted state law intended to severely limit drag shows. Two days later, a federal judge ruled that law enforcement officials couldn’t do so.
The equality project said the performers were fully clothed and denied the shows were inappropriate. The city warned the organization it would deny any future event permits and later approved updating its “community decency standards” intended to “assist in the determination of conduct, materials, and events that may be judged as obscene or harmful to minors.”
Many supporters said drag performances in their hometowns made it necessary to restrict them from taking place in public or where children could view them.
