In March 1947, a Florida court ordered the Ha Ha Club - a nightclub
famous for its “female impersonators,” as they were called at
the time - to close after declaring it a public nuisance.
The order came just a month after Frank Tuppen, a juvenile probation officer with political ambitions, filed a complaint against the venue. He argued that the club’s performers were “sexual perverts” who had embedded “in the minds of the youngsters” who lived in the area “things immoral” and were “breaking down their character.”
The owner of the club, Charles “Babe” Baker, appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, but in October 1947, it affirmed the lower court’s decision that the club was a public nuisance. “Men impersonating women” in performances that are “nasty, suggestive and indecent” injure the “manners and morals of the people,” the court ruled.
Last month, nearly 75 later, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who is widely thought to be eyeing a 2024 presidential run, cited the case that shut down Ha Ha Club in a complaint against Miami restaurant R House over its drag performances.
The 2022 complaint, filed by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, threatened to revoke R House’s liquor license, arguing that the establishment violated a state public nuisance law by becoming “manifestly injurious to the morals or manners of the people.”
Historians say the parallels between the R House and the Ha Ha Club complaints, and the fact that DeSantis’ administration cited a 75-year-old court decision, reveal how conservatives are resurfacing a decades-old moral panic about LGBTQ people to target queer spaces.
What will happen to Key West if he's successful? Stay tuned...
...
Need to find a nice gift for a special someone
who might be a cat lover?
Click on the picture above for information on this item.
You can find something nice for your Mom, your wife,
your daughter or your girlfriend right here:
your daughter or your girlfriend right here:
Funny, in the 50's nobody batted an eye over Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon dressing as women in "Some Like it Hot" or Milton Berle dragging it up on TV....some people need a good dose of mindyourownfuckingbusiness.....if you don't want to see it, don't go.....that explains why I never go to a democrat rally....to paraphrase Shakespeare, "To save the country, get rid of all the democrats"....
ReplyDeletecrazy world we live in. This drag shit today is about grooming - then it was about being funny. there is a difference...
ReplyDelete