Blame it on Ariel, a character from “The Little Mermaid.” She stirred up the Tennessee General Assembly.
When a woman — a biological woman, mind you — dressed up as Ariel at a recent event organized by Chattanooga Pride, a Nashville-area conservative political activist circulated a video from the event on social media. The video showed a girl running her hands along the front of a performer’s sequined costume. In lightning time, social media commenters were donning an outsized sense of outrage — assuming that at a Pride event, she was a he.
Cue up the supermajority Republican Tennessee Legislature, which as a panel missed its calling as the Salem tribunal of witch-hunters.
Citing “several reports of controversial drag shows in Tennessee where children were present,” Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, R-Franklin, introduced legislation to prohibit drag entertainers from performing on public property or at private functions where minors are present, subjecting performers to criminal penalties.
Writ large, the bill would amend a state law preventing adult-oriented businesses like strip clubs from operating within 1,000 feet of schools, public parks or places of worship to include “adult cabaret performances,” including those of exotic dancers and “male or female impersonators.”