The San Antonio LGBT Chamber of Commerce is hosting Dustin Rynders, head of the Texas Civil Rights Project’s Criminal Injustice Program, for a “Know Your Rights” event on Sept. 7.
Board President Jeff Ivey said the chamber would rather not have to host such events.
“We should be able to focus on promoting our members’ businesses,” he said, and helping them succeed. Instead, “We’re hosting events like this so that people are aware of what this bill means and what the consequences are.”
“This bill” is Senate Bill 12, which is set to go into effect on Friday. It aims to stop sexualized performances in front of children, by making such performances punishable by up to $10,000 in fines. Republican legislators originally targeted the bill directly at drag performances.
However, Rynders said lawmakers “got rid of the explicit language around cross dressing and drag because other laws around the country were being struck down as the legislature was debating this,” leaving the law overly broad and vague.
The Texas Civil Rights Project brought one of two federal lawsuits against the law in early August. The main plaintiff in that case is The Vortex, an Austin-based theater that isn’t focused on drag, Rynders said.
LGBT Chambers in San Antonio, Dallas and Houston have joined the suit. Ivey said the chamber’s decision to join was driven in part by members’ perception that SB 12, along with other legislative attacks on the LGBTQ community, “is damaging to our state’s economy.”
That lawsuit called the pending law an “existential” attack on Texans’ First Amendment rights that “sweeps so broadly and is written so vaguely” that it could affect performances from theaters like the Vortex to Broadway musicals and concerts.
As written, the law also removes parental discretion, Rynders said, something many parents in Texas seem very concerned about, given their efforts to ban certain books from school libraries and oversee what’s taught in classrooms.
The law “doesn’t distinguish between a 4-year-old and a 17-year-old,” nor would it allow parents to decide what they deem is appropriate for their children, he said.
The other lawsuit, which was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, had a court hearing earlier this week. Plaintiffs in the case include 360 Queen Entertainment, a San Antonio-based business that produces drag shows and has “already suffered negative impacts from the drag ban and will continue to be irreparably harmed if it takes effect,” according to the suit.
After hearing testimony Monday and Tuesday, U.S. District Judge David Hittner is expected to rule as soon as Thursday on granting a temporary injunction against the law.
Rynders, who attended the hearing, said the temporary injunction would last 14 days, just long enough for the ACLU to brief the judge on why he should rule against the state of Texas and permanently bar the law from taking effect.
If the judge does not make that ruling, the Texas Civil Rights Project’s lawsuit still has the opportunity to stop the law, Rynders said.
Ivey said if the law is allowed to stand, it could impede people’s ability to make a living.
“Texas seems to be on this path of really trying to take rights away from our citizens,” he said — citizens who own businesses and patronize businesses, making them a critical part of the Texas economy. “If you’re opposed to something, just don’t go to it.”
