A federal appeals court ruled 8, 5 to uphold Florida's Protection of Children Act, reversing a lower court injunction and clearing the way for the state to punish businesses that admit minors to sexually explicit live shows.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, sitting as a full thirteen-judge panel, handed Florida a major legal victory Tuesday when it reversed a district court order that had blocked enforcement of the 2023 law statewide. Judge Andrew Brasher, a Trump appointee, wrote for the eight-judge majority that the statute "is a straightforward regulation of obscenity" and that the Constitution "protects speech, but not obscenity." The decision came after three years of litigation that wound from a federal courtroom in Florida to the Supreme Court and back, The Christian Post reported.

The ruling lands Florida among five states, alongside Arkansas, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas, that now actively bar minors from adult live performances of this kind. It also strips away a statewide injunction issued by Senior District Judge Gregory Presnell, a Clinton appointee, that had kept the law frozen since shortly after its enactment.

Three years of litigation end with an 8, 5 vote

Florida enacted the Protection of Children Act in 2023. The law makes it a misdemeanor to knowingly admit a child to an adult live performance involving nudity, sexual conduct, or lewd behavior, Fox News reported. Days after the law took effect, Hamburger Mary's, a bar and restaurant chain that hosted drag shows, filed suit, arguing the statute violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Judge Presnell sided with the restaurant and issued a statewide injunction blocking enforcement. The Supreme Court declined to lift that injunction in November 2023. Then, in May 2025, a divided three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit upheld Presnell's order on vagueness grounds.

The full court stepped in. It vacated the panel decision and reheard the case en banc in June 2026, with Florida Solicitor General Dave Dewhirst arguing for the state. Tuesday's ruling reversed the injunction and sent the case back to the lower court for further proceedings.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier celebrated the outcome on X, calling it a "huge victory."

"After 3 years of litigation, the full court affirmed the constitutionality of Florida's ban on children attending sexualized drag shows. Great work by Solicitor General Dave Dewhirst, who argued the case on the state's behalf!"

Brasher's majority: obscenity has never been protected speech

The majority opinion rested on a principle as old as modern First Amendment law: obscenity falls outside the Constitution's speech protections. Brasher wrote that "the First Amendment has never been treated as absolute," quoting Supreme Court precedent that "[t]here are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem."

The Act defines "adult live performance" using a three-part test that mirrors the Supreme Court's landmark Miller v. California obscenity standard, the framework courts have used for decades to separate protected expression from obscenity, adapted here for minors. A performance falls under the law only if it appeals to prurient interests, is patently offensive, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for children, National Review noted.

Brasher rejected claims that the law was unconstitutionally vague, ruling that the term "lewd" was sufficiently defined by longstanding Florida Supreme Court precedent. He also dismissed the facial overbreadth challenge, writing that "it is difficult to imagine any sex-based performance that predominantly appeals to a prurient interest being suitable for a child of any age."

The majority concluded Hamburger Mary's was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its constitutional claims. And in a separate finding, the court held that the district court lacked authority to issue a universal injunction, an order that blocked enforcement against parties who were not even part of the lawsuit. Two judges in the majority, Judges Britt Grant and Kevin Newsom, joined every part of the opinion except the section addressing universal injunctions. Grant wrote separately on that point.

The broader question of how courts protect children from explicit material has drawn renewed attention in recent years. Across the country, government officials have taken increasingly aggressive steps to hold adults accountable when minors are exposed to sexual content or abuse.

Five dissenters call the law a 'Titanic-sized iceberg' against free speech

The five dissenting judges, all appointed by Democratic presidents, saw the statute differently. Their opinion described the law as a "Titanic-sized iceberg of chilling power against protected speech, in violation of the First Amendment" and called it "unconstitutionally vague" under the Fourteenth Amendment. Judges Nancy Abudu and Embry Kidd (Biden appointees) and Judges Adalberto Jordan, Jill Pryor, and Robin Rosenbaum (Obama appointees) joined the dissent.

The split tracked closely with the appointing presidents. All eight judges in the majority were appointed by Republican presidents, six by Trump, one by George W. Bush, and one by Gerald Ford. All five dissenters were appointed by Democrats. The divide illustrates how sharply the federal bench remains split on questions of child protection, parental authority, and the outer limits of the First Amendment.

Cases involving the protection of minors from predatory or exploitative conduct have surfaced with disturbing regularity. In one recent Florida case, a pastor faced criminal charges for sexually abusing a teenage boy, a reminder that the legal system's role in shielding children extends well beyond the culture wars.

Hamburger Mary's already stopped its children's shows

Hamburger Mary's, the Orlando-area restaurant chain at the center of the case, had already ended its Sunday "family friendly" drag performances, the ones open to children, during the course of the litigation. The restaurant brought the original challenge days after the law was enacted, arguing that the statute would chill its right to host drag events.

But Brasher's opinion drew a line between the law and drag performance in general. As National Review legal commentator Ed Whelan observed, "The restaurant remains free to host its family friendly drag shows if those shows do not depict or simulate the activities that the Act prohibits." The law targets performances that meet the obscenity standard adapted for minors, not drag shows as a category.

That distinction did not satisfy Equality Florida, the state's largest LGBT advocacy group. In a Facebook post, the organization insisted the ruling changed nothing about the law's constitutional defects.

"Let's be clear: the law is just as constitutionally flawed today as it was last week. Drag is *still* not banned in Florida and never has been. Drag artists persist. Our fight against censorship continues."

The group urged supporters to "tip your drag performers generously." But the legal landscape shifted beneath them. The injunction that had shielded businesses statewide is gone. The full Eleventh Circuit found the law constitutional. And the case now returns to the lower court for further proceedings under a framework far more favorable to the state.

Accountability for adults who expose children to harmful situations has become a recurring theme in courtrooms across the South. In Alabama, a podcaster recently faced arrest on child sex charges, underscoring the gravity with which the legal system now treats offenses against minors.

Liberty Counsel: ruling 'reinforces longstanding principles'

Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, a religious liberty legal organization, praised the decision in a statement. He framed it as a vindication of established obscenity law applied to a modern context.

"Exposing children to lewd adult performances is not protected by the First Amendment, and Florida's 'Protection of Children Act' rightfully shields children from that obscenity. This decision shows that child-protection measures grounded in established obscenity doctrine do not infringe on the First Amendment's free speech protections."

Staver added that "the appeals court rightly ruled that states have a compelling interest in protecting children from obscene content and doing so fits squarely within constitutional boundaries." The ruling, he said, "reinforces the longstanding principles that children should be protected from obscenity."

The Eleventh Circuit's decision also addressed a procedural question with implications beyond this single case. The majority held that the district court overstepped by issuing a universal injunction, one that blocked enforcement of the law against every business in Florida, not just the plaintiff that brought the suit. That finding could limit how broadly lower courts issue injunctions in future challenges to state laws, Breitbart reported.

With the injunction dissolved and the case headed back to the trial court, Florida can now enforce a law that sat idle for three years while judges debated its boundaries. Four other states already enforce similar statutes. Whether opponents take the fight to the Supreme Court remains an open question.

Courts that have dealt with fraud, abuse, and exploitation in other contexts have shown a growing willingness to hold bad actors accountable. Tuesday's ruling fits that pattern, a court applying existing legal doctrine to say that shielding children from sexually explicit material is not censorship. It is common sense.

When a legislature passes a law to keep adults from dragging children into obscene performances, and a full federal appeals court says the Constitution permits it, the only people with reason to object are the ones who thought the old rules should never apply to them.