Children Should Be Protected From Obscene LGBTQ Performances

While the district court previously declined Liberty Counsel’s request to intervene due to time constraints during preliminary proceedings, Liberty Counsel is again seeking “party status” to defend the rights of parents to shield their children from indecent material. If the court dismisses the case or declines Naples Pride’s injunction request, the city of Naples can continue to impose reasonable restrictions on these obscene performances. For the last three years, the city council has required the lewd performance to be held indoors and for adults only.

In June 2025, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the city allowing it to protect children and restrict the obscene June 7 performance from the city’s most popular playground at Cambier Park. However, the appeals court ruling only involved a preliminary injunction and the city’s public event permitting criteria still faces a First Amendment legal challenge from Naples Pride regarding the drag show restrictions.

While Naples Pride characterizes the drag show as “family friendly,” Liberty Counsel presented evidence in federal court of photographs from the 2022 outdoor show held just 100 feet from Cambier Park’s playground. These images depict male performers in obscene drag performing lewd poses and simulating sexual acts that are unsuitable for minors. The drag performers also invited children to place money in their waist bands like strippers in a bar as the men shook their over-stuffed brassiere tops and “twerked” their bodies mimicking sexual activities no child should ever see.

“The City’s permitting scheme and indoors- and-adults-only requirement do not deny Naples Pride the right to hold its drag show—it merely requires that it hold the event away from innocent children,” wrote Liberty Counsel. “Decades of Supreme Court precedent holds that the First Amendment does not license licentious acts in front of children in public places.”

The city of Naples had previously revoked Naples Pride’s permit to use the park after the lewd 2022 performances, and Naples Pride was forced to take their sexual deviancy celebration behind closed doors. In 2023 and 2024, the event was held inside and away from children in the park. In April 2025, the Naples City Council voted 5-2 to again move the traditionally lewd and indecent drag show indoors. But this year, Naples Pride wanted to publicly display their scantily clad bodies to visually assault the children and indoctrinate them. Naples Pride and the ACLU sued to require the city to issue the group a special events permit without any of the imposed location or age restrictions.

Initially in this case, U.S. District Judge John Steele sided with Naples Pride granting them a preliminary injunction allowing the drag show to be performed at Cambier Park. Yet, Judge Steele made no mention in his ruling of the lewd photographs from the 2022 show, nor did he address the rights of parents or the government’s compelling interest to protect children from sexually inappropriate conduct. However, the appeals court reversed that decision 2-1 stating the restrictions only targeted safety concerns and not expressive views, and that the district court had “abused its discretion” because the city’s actions did not “disturb” the First Amendment rights of Naples Pride.

The appeals court also noted that the drag performance was a “limited public forum” involving a specific topic--LGBTQ celebration--and a specific class of speakers specially selected by the event organizer. Since the same restrictions had been placed on the last two performances in 2023 and 2024 without substantial injury to the First Amendment rights, the court ruled the restrictions were reasonable.

Liberty Counsel Senior Litigation Counsel Kristina Heuser said, “The First Amendment does not require any city to provide its public spaces for every type of expressive conduct under every condition preferred by the speaker. The First Amendment does not protect an obscene drag performance in full view of a children’s playground. Putting indoor and age restrictions on this event, as limited public forum, passes constitutional muster in the interest of public safety. Citizens do not have to tolerate obscene drag shows in view of their children.”