Kentucky City Latest To Equate Drag With ‘Adult Entertainment’

The city council in Somerset, Kentucky, says it will now “look into” whether a drag show should be forced to apply for the same “adult entertainment” permits as strip clubs, according to a report by The Somerset Commonwealth-Journal. But the municipality is not the first to equate drag with stripping and porn.

In Harford County, Maryland, in May, multiple bars and restaurants were threatened by local authorities with the loss of their liquor licenses if they went ahead with planned drag entertainment events, on the grounds that drag performances violate county “rules regarding nudity and sexual displays,” according to The Baltimore Sun.  

While the Maryland rule bans exposing or fondling specific body parts as part of a performance, local club owners and employees—who ultimately canceled the drag shows rather than surrender their revenue-generating liquor licenses—were left baffled by the county’s choice to enforce the adult entertainment rules against drag performers.

“I think it’s crazy. There’s no stripping, no nudity, it’s just boys dressed up as women. They wear gowns and they dance around,” Guy Macina, a server at one of the establishments, told The Sun.

The local laws prohibit wearing of any “attire, costume or clothing so as to expose to view any portion of the female breast,” according to the Sun report.

At a recent council meeting in Somerset, Kentucky, a member of the public objected to an upcoming drag show at the local Jarfly Brewing Company, which would be presented as part of a local “Chill Out and Proud pride festival” on October 5—an event designed to be “family friendly” according to The Commonwealth-Journal.

But when one member of the public inquired whether Jarfly had obtained an adult entertainment license, stating, “I feel like this nation was founded under God, and I don't feel that God approves of that,” city council members said they would investigate whether the drag event required a license under a local ordinance regulating adult entertainment.

The ordinance was meant to regulate any establishment described as an “adult amusement arcade, adult book store, adult motion picture theater, adult novelty center, adult stage show theater, adult cassette rental center, cabaret, sexual entertainment center or self-designated adult entertainment center,” the paper reported.

And just one week ago, the city council in Leander, Texas, voted to stop renting meeting rooms in the local library to members of the public, after the library was scheduled to host “Drag Queen Story Time” for kids, according to The Daily Signal

“These are people who are actually employed at adult nightclubs,” said Elizabeth Castle of the nonprofit group Texas Values. “And so those people shouldn’t be reading to children.” 

Photo By B-Girlz / Wikimedia Commons