Banging Head Against The Wall.

You have to wonder what they were thinking.

The North Carolina Bar Association should be all about the First Amendment not about ignoring it.

Sparks Fly After North Carolina Legal Boss Axes Drag Trivia Event

LGBT members shouldn’t be “perceived as trying to advance just your agenda on the world,” the state bar association president said.

The Daily Beast

By Noah Kirsch

May 14, 2023

The president of the North Carolina Bar Association faced immense backlash from the group’s committee for LGBTQ+ equality this week, after he canceled a planned drag trivia night and suggested that the committee “present both sides” of the debate about drag culture instead.

That way, NCBA president Clayton Morgan said, the committee wouldn’t be “perceived as trying to advance just your agenda on the world,” according to a recording of his remarks shared with The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity.

The trivia night was in the works for many months, but the political stakes for progressives in North Carolina have recently escalated. In April, a Democratic state representative switched parties, thereby giving Republicans a veto-proof majority in both the state House and Senate. Later that month, Republican legislators proposed a new bill that would criminalize hosting drag shows on public property.

The bar association’s committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity had scheduled their drag trivia night for June 8, but on May 5, the group’s members received an email from Morgan telling them that the event was off.

You would think that the bar association would avoid running against the First Amendment, but Noo… they dug the hole deeper.

“I think all of us went into this meeting thinking that it was not going to be great. It somehow managed to be about 100 times worse,” Michael Roessler, a Charlotte-based attorney and member of the committee, told The Daily Beast.

Within two minutes, the meeting hit its first snag. A member of the group proposed recording the conversation in the interest of “transparency” and “accountability.” Morgan nixed the proposal, announcing that the board had recently enacted a policy against recording meetings.

[…]

Morgan conceded that drag shows in general had been misconstrued by political actors, saying “there are individuals in society who have now chosen to use this very type of event for something that it’s not. And it will therefore be hard for the association to help create the correct understanding of it by actually having an event.”

[…]

From there, things “went off the rails,” Roessler said, after Morgan proposed hosting an open forum with a “neutral moderator.” Morgan insisted that he continued to support the committee, though he urged them to view his comments as an opportunity for growth.

My guess is that the committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity is going to vanish. You would think that the bar association would respect a person 1^st Amendment rights instead of caving into to the right-wing agenda.

'We're under attack': NC House bill targets drag performances

• Veto-proof Republican legislators filed a bill that targets drag performances.
• Critics say the bill is an unconstitutional violation of freedom of speech and impedes on parents' rights.
• Some say the bill is part of a coordinated attack against LGBTQ rights.

The Fayetteville Observer

By Taylor Shook

April 19, 2023

On Tuesday, North Carolina legislators filed a bill that targets drag performances, sparking concerns among the Fayetteville LGBTQ community.  

State Rep. Jeff Zenger, a Republican from Forsyth County, filed House Bill 673, which seeks to ban engaging in "adult live entertainment" on public property or where minors under the age of 18 are present. 

The bill defines "adult live entertainment" as “a performance featuring topless dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, or male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest.”  

The U.S. Court of Appeals has defined "material appealing to prurient interest" as having a tendency to excite lustful thoughts, and defined prurient interest as a "shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex or excretion." 

First-time offenders could face misdemeanor charges with up to five months in jail, and repeat offenders could face felony charges with up to two years in jail. 

Notice who they lump us with, “topless dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, and entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest.” There is no nudity nor simulated sex acts.