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Republicans in Tennessee have boldly demonstrated how to take on one of the biggest problems America is facing: drag shows.

While liberals and public opinion polls and people who have not lost their minds naively believe things like school shootings, the economy, crime and poverty are more pressing issues, Tennessees Republican-led state government and a number of conservative lawmakers across the country, have remained laser-focused on great-ifying America by demonizing drag performers.

On Thursday, the Volunteer (As Long As Youre Not Volunteering At A Drag Show) State became the first to restrict drag performances. Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill that bans drag shows in places where minors might watch them and on public property.

The bill was, I assume, in direct response to the zero people who have been killed by drag shows and the nones of people who have witnessed a drag performance and then been emotionally or psychologically ruined.

Addressing the point of legislation that some might consider several steps beyond stupid, the governor waved to a nearby elementary school and said: I think that the concern is whats right there in that building. He was presumably referencing children and not, you know, desks and lockers and administrative staff and whatnot.

Lee, who has apparently never seen the internet or a TikTok video, continued: Children that are potentially exposed to sexualized entertainment, to obscenity, and we need to make sure that theyre not.

Indeed, the nonexistent epidemic of drag shows in this country presents a real and present danger to our children, as it is the only avenue by which they might be exposed to sexualized entertainment, aside from television, streaming services, YouTube, movies, video games, music, advertisements, casual conversations with friends and the entirety of the electronic world available to them on the powerful hand-computers they keep in their pockets.

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Things like school shootings apparently do not pose a threat to children, as the Tennessee governor in 2021 made it legal for people to carry handguns without a permit. So, to be clear: drag show = danger, carrying a gunwithout a permit = safe, and patriotic!

According to the Washington Post, at least 26 bills have been introduced in 14 states by Republican legislators taking aim at drag events this year. Along with the fact that the bills are just weird and puritanical, opponents fear the broad wording in them could effectively outlaw drag performances in some parts of the country.

Human Rights Campaign Legal Director Sarah Warbelow said in a statement that laws like Tennessees drag ban along with an even more pernicious bill Lee signed into law last week banning gender-affirming care are not about protecting youth, they are about spreading dangerous misinformation against the transgender community; they are about doubling down on efforts to attack drag artists and transgender youth.

Advocates who oppose a bill that would restrict where certain drag shows could take place march from a rally outside of the Tennessee Capitol in Nashville on Feb. 14, 2023 to the Cordell Hull legislative building.

Warbelow is right. Republicans are using drag performers and transgender people as a bogeyman to fire up the dwindling number of Americans who will fall for that kind of mean nonsense.

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Tennessee is ranked 36th overall for child well-being, according to the 2022 Kids Count Data Book put out by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. You know what didnt cause that? Drag shows.

Tennessee ranked 44th out of the 50 states in the 2022 Americas Health Rankings report by the United Health Foundation. Drag shows didnt hurt anyones health.

The state ranks 14th in the country for infant mortality, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And not because of drag shows.

Based on crime statistics from the FBI, Tennessee was ranked the fourth most violent state in the country in 2021. Drag shows had nothing to do with that.

One in five children in Tennessee live in poverty. But yeah, definitely go after those drag shows.

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It would be possible, I suppose, for Tennessee lawmakers and politicians in any of the states eyeing bans on drag performances or busily attacking things like gender-affirming care and transgender rights to focus on insignificant matters like the health of their constituents, crime or the conditions children experience.

TikTok star Charli D'Amelio and Mark Ballas are the new "Dancing With the Stars" champions. This would be OK for Tennessee Republicans, but not drag shows.

But then, who would tackle the scourge of drag shows? Who would protect the youth from something that isnt threatening the youth? Who would make a small subset of citizens lives miserable in order to make a point thats both incorrect and wholly unnecessary?

Kudos to Tennessee Republicans for being too dumb to realize what theyre doing is a bad idea, and too cruel to care.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tennessee drag show ban attacks LGBTQ community, doesn't protect kids

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Tennessee Republicans target America's greatest threat: Drag shows ...