I read the story this morning about Florida’s attorney general demanding the city of Pensacola cancel an upcoming drag show at the Saenger Theatre, calling it “obscene” and “anti-religious.”
The show, called A Drag Queen Christmas, is scheduled for two days before Christmas, and according to Attorney General James Uthmeier, it ridicules Christian traditions and shouldn’t be allowed to go on. He’s asking the city to step in and stop it, citing the morality clause in the theater’s management contract. And I have to admit, reading this left me uneasy. Not because drag performances are beyond critique, but because this feels like yet another moment where MAGA government officials confuse moral outrage with governance.
Uthmeier says, “While the First Amendment safeguards freedom of expression, it does not require a city to platform and endorse disgusting, obscene content that denigrates its residents’ religious beliefs.” It’s a tidy soundbite that’s technically true in the narrowest legal sense, but the spirit behind it tells another story. The statement isn’t really about contract language or logistics. It’s about control. It’s about who decides what counts as acceptable culture in a public space, and whether “protecting the community” really means silencing the parts of it some people find uncomfortable…