Tennessee has now introduced legislation that would ban public drag performances
and gender affirming care for transgender minors.
Because there is nothing else going on in Tennessee that needs to be addressed by
its state government.
So they have time to do this.
Here's what's in the bill introduced in the state Senate last november by state
Senate Majority leader Jack Johnson.
Tennessee's Senate bill 3 seeks to amend an existing state law preventing, quote,
adult-oriented businesses from operating within 1000 feet of schools,
public parks or places of worship to include adult cabaret performances, which
the legislation defines as performances that feature, quote, male or female
impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest.
Which is of course incredibly vague by design.
They get to say what's prurient or not.
They also get decide what male or female impersonation is.
So if Hillary Clinton wears a pantsuit, that's a suit,
is she Impersonating someone?
What the hell does any of this mean?
We know what it means, is a culture war thing.
It doesn't have to be logical, doesn't have to be specific.
We don't even have to enforce it necessarily.
But passing it makes every one of these Republicans look good to some of
the craziest people in the country.
And by the way, while there's some things that immediately are gonna be outlet as
a result of this shows of topless dancers, go go dancers, exotic dancers,
strippers, those sorts of things.
Some people are concerned that it could go way beyond that, take a look.
>> My concern with this is the breadth of the language, Mr Sponsor.
And the breadth of this language takes direct aim at the local
economy of my city.
It takes direct aim at the entertainers within my city.
It takes direct aim with that small businesses in my community.
And so the language of this bill, now,
I don't know if you've ever attended a Beyonce concert.
Something tells me you haven't.
Or a Harry Styles concert, or a Lizzo concert,
or a Madonna concert, your language prohibiting and
the breath, the vagueness in this bill would prohibit
those entertainers from performing in my city.
It would prohibit Beyonce, the Queen Bey herself,
who is coming to Nashville this year.
This bill would allow me as a district attorney
by the plain language of this bill to arrest Beyonce.
Is that your intended goal here?
>> I like his general point there.
I like even more that he fit in the reference to the Queen Bey.
It wasn't necessary, but I like it, I respect it.
But yeah, it's a perfectly good point.
Harry styles frequently gets attacked by the right wing for
wearing clothes that aren't traditionally masculine clothes.
So, I guess you could arrest him or more likely he wouldn't risk that,
he just wouldn't come.
And yet another right wing state would prove itself to be so backwards that no
popular entertainer, no figure would wanna go through the legal headaches.
So why even bother if Beyonce is gonna wear a suit jacket and a tie,
she could be arrested.
So why even bother?
What is the point of all of this?
>> Okay, before I get to my serious points,
I love looking at the legislators in the background.
And so normally they're always like look bored even if there's like madness going
on and whatever the speaker is saying.
Sometimes the white guys in the background look angry by the way this passed
overwhelmingly.
So those are the white guys in the background that I'm referring to.
But if you notice the guy in the pink shirt, the black guy and
all the way in the right there.
Once he got to Queen Bey,
he was like [LAUGH] I was waiting to see what he's gonna do.
>> All I see is the nod right there.
[LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] I love that guy.
And I like how, what's he eating?
I want it.
[LAUGH] >> I don't know.
>> Anyways, so that's the fun part of the story.
The rest is a disaster.
But first Brian.
[LAUGH] >> Well I was going to say,
I'm not a lawyer but I play one on tv.
And I know that the phrase prurient interest will
never stand up in any higher court.
To measure prurient interest, we would have to put what is called
a penile plethysmograph on the end of every man's phallus and
measure it and his degree of excitement as he looks upon what is
considered overt sexual demonstration or whatever.
And really there is no way to do that without it being a complete invasion of
one's personal liberty.
So I really don't,
they say that this wwill be enforceable by their attorney general.
And the first challenge to this case is I can't wait until,
I just wanna see a solicitor in the highest court in the land and
the Supreme Court in drag arguing the case before the justices.
And I don't know what you guys think.
And then I just had this other thing to say about that I've been giving a lot
of thought to the daily show and what we started almost over 25 years ago.
We started making fun of the news media, and
we started making fun of the the corporate news media.
And we've been sort of laying bare the satirical
sort of truth about news and satire, and
all of it has really made people laugh.
Yes, over over the few decades.But I don't know what you guys think.
It's just kind of emboldened the right,
the FoxNews media machine still grew at an exponential rate.
But, when I think about it in this context,
there have been all these series about drag shows and drag performers.
And all this transparency about what these people are doing with their lives and
how they consider it like an art, like show business.
There's been years of Rupaul's drag race, it's like a really pa popular show on VH1.
I mean, it's got a huge audience and constituency, and
you would think that the result would be the opposite.
The people would come around to an awareness of something and
go like, it's innocuous, it's just people expressing themselves.
It's like practically art.
But it has the opposite effect.
It emboldens the resistance.
And the result is a codification of this bias into law now in
Tennessee where a public drag show is literally again,
to like what I grew up with, known as a flasher.
Like a guy in a trench coat who stands on a playground and
opens his code up to a bunch of kids.
It doesn't quite fit logically.
What do you guys think of that?
>> Well look, I think the right wing mind needs the others.
They need to identify someone who is outside their wagons and
they need to attack them.
Just look at the history of this country,
that is what the right wing has done every time.
They just moved targets.
>> Yeah. >> So, and now they're kind of moving
around, they went back to the black folks and immigrants a little bit.
But they moved from Muslims to Jews a little bit, [LAUGH] right?
But they need another.
And they were attacking gay people for timing memorial here in America,
and unfortunately throughout the world.
Then that became non-kosher, and if we're being honest a lot of the donors are gay.
And so then they had this the Republican party officials had to stop,
because they were getting money from people who were in that community, right?
And so they're like, this is painful, we love hating the others.
But I think we're gonna have to let this one go.
And more importantly a lot of republicans realized there's gay people in their
families.
And they're like, it's a little harder to hate my son, my daughter.
Although a lot of them pull it off, right?
But it became harder, so they had to go further out in LGBTQ.
[LAUGH] They had to get the T and beyond, right?
>> [LAUGH] To the +, they had to get to the +.
>> Yeah, yeah, and so the right wing attacking
people that are different than them is inevitable.
And guys, it's not an American phenomenon, it happens in every country.
The right wing of every country attacks the others.
And they always rotate who the others are but they're not them.
That's not their race, is not their religion, is not their community etc.
So does this have to do with the children?
No, the sick part of this is they're using children
as political tools to actually perpetuate hate.
So, it doesn't have any new, I mean look what Brian said, this is so obvious.
We're worried about the poor kids.
Are you?
Because Rupaul's drag race is on tv, you're not banning that.
>> Well, hold up.
I know, hold on though.
The Internet has unlimited porn of every variety and
all of your kids have instant access to it.
Are you banning the Internet?
Are you banning any?
No, by the way prurient interest, okay?
Why are we focus only on drag queens and people who are trans.
On the Internet, there is tons and
tons of prurient interest that is involve straight sex.
Should we ban those?
No, no, no, we're not there.
Okay, then what is this about?
Guys, I am tired of having gaslighting debates about what they actually mean.
Do they really care about the kids?
No, they don't care about the kids at all.
And, do they care about family values?
What kind of family value is?
I'm gonna tell you how to run your life, and
I'm gonna tell you how to run your family.
Like for example, if somebody said to me, hey, I took my kids to a drag queen show.
I think, okay.
I don't know what this is in the drag queen show.
It's not my job to know what's in that drag queen show.
It could be something totally innocuous, it could be really sexual,
that's possible, but it's not my job to parent their kids.
>> Yep. >> That's their job, okay?
So this is actually a war on parents saying, hey, you know what?
If I don't like the way you're parenting, because I am a tyrant, and
I love government tyranny, and I love big government,
I'm gonna tell you, don't watch that, don't look at that,
don't have your kids go to this, I'm gonna tell you what to do with your kids.
Right wingers, just own it, that's who you are.
You spew hatred, you love big government, and
you loved it when government was tyrannical.
Not you guys specifically, but back in the day, right wingers, it wasn't
left wingers, it was right wingers who loved the institution of slavery, and
loved controlling other people's lives, owning other people's lives.
And to this day you're still like drag queens, trans people,
telling them what to do, they have to obey us.
And then you talk about freedom.
[LAUGH] You hate freedom, just own it.