NEWS PROVIDED BY
Liberty Counsel
May 9, 2025

NAPLES, Fla., May 9, 2025 /Standard Newswire/ -- Liberty Counsel filed a motion on behalf of three concerned Collier County parents to defend the city of Naples against a proposed, grossly inappropriate, and sexually explicit drag show to be held outside near a children’s playground.

Previously, Liberty Counsel also filed an amicus brief in Naples Pride v. City of Naples to help keep the obscene LGBTQ performance show indoors and for adults only at an upcoming June “pride” festival. Now, Liberty Counsel is seeking “party status” in the case to uphold Florida law and to directly defend the rights of parents to shield their children from indecent material.

In April, the Naples City Council voted 5-2 to move the proposed drag show indoors away from Cambier Park that is frequented by parents and their children, and to put an adults-only restriction on the event. Then Naples Pride, an LGBTQ advocacy group sponsoring the drag show, and the ACLU sued seeking a preliminary injunction that would require the city to issue the group a special events permit without any of the imposed location or age restrictions.

On May 2, a preliminary injunction hearing took place in U.S. District Court where the city of Naples offered only one defense to its restrictions on the drag show. The city noted that Cambier Park, which has a children’s playground a mere 100 feet away from where Naples Pride wants to hold its drag show, is a limited public forum where permits are subject to reasonable and viewpoint neutral criteria. While this is true, Liberty Counsel argues this defense leaves out more significant arguments that would require the court to deny the injunction in the interest of protecting children.

In the motion, Liberty Counsel stated that the city did not raise the defense that Florida’s “Protection of Children Act” of 2023 expressly outlaws public drag shows held in view of minors. Allowing a drag performance in open air and in full view of a busy children’s playground would violate Florida law. Despite a federal judge narrowly blocking enforcement of that law for a single Florida agency, that ruling is under appeal and “does not erase or suspend” the law itself.

The state of Florida recognizes that children – and their parents, by extension – have a legally protectible interest in the material they are exposed to as well as having safe parks and playgrounds, wrote Liberty Counsel.

While Naples Pride characterizes the drag show as “family friendly,” the city avoided challenging this false statement. Several parents of young children who frequent Cambier Park where the festival has been held previously strongly disagree that this show is “family friendly.” In Liberty Counsel’s previous amicus brief, they presented photographic documentation of scenes from a 2022 outdoor show held just 100 feet from the children’s playground. These images depict male performers in obscene drag performing lewd poses and simulating sexual acts that are unsuitable for minors. The drag performers also invited children to place money in their waist bands like strippers in a bar as the men shook their over-stuffed brazier tops and “twerked” their fish net covered hind ends mimicking sexual activities no child should ever see. The scenes are revolting and totally inappropriate for children.

“The city of Naples has demonstrated an aversion to broaching the issue of obscenity, lewdness, or harm to minors posed by the proposed drag performance in view of children altogether,” wrote Liberty Counsel. “For some inexplicable reason, the city has refused to even suggest, much less forcefully defend itself on the constitutional grounds that [Naples Pride’s] grossly inappropriate sexualized performances are only afforded limited (if any) protection under the First Amendment, and whatever protection may exist is eviscerated when considered in the context of exposure to children.”

As U.S. Supreme Court precedents have made clear, the government has a “compelling interest in protecting the physical and psychological well-being of minors,” which “extends to shielding minors” from sexually inappropriate conduct and indecent material, concluded Liberty Counsel.

The city of Naples had previously revoked the group’s permit to use the park after these lewd 2022 performances, and Naples Pride was forced to take their sexual deviancy celebration behind closed doors. In 2023 and 2024, the event was held inside and away from children in the park. But this year, the same group wants to publicly display their scantily clad bodies to visually assault the children and indoctrinate them.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Liberty Counsel is intervening in this case to give parents who wish to protect their children from obscene drag performances a fuller defense on the legal and constitutional issues left unspoken by the city of Naples. The First Amendment does not protect an obscene drag performance in full view of a children’s playground, and Florida law outright bans it. Restricting speech for children that is otherwise protected for adults passes constitutional muster in the interest of protecting their well-being. Citizens do not have to tolerate obscene drag shows in view of their children.”

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SOURCE Liberty Counsel

CONTACT: Mat Staver, 407-875-1776, Liberty@LC.org