Very well stated, thanks. Clearly, drag performances in public do not meet legal definitions of obscenity, and even some GOP Tennessee lawmakers have defended their drag ban by explaining that it only applies to performances that are legally obscene - which, as you've explained is a pretty tough standard to meet.

However, LGBTQ advocates, including prominent Tennessee lawyers, have been objecting for months that the basic problem with the law is its patently intentional vagueness.

There's not a chance in hell, for example, that drag performers at the Country Music Awards in Nashville will be charged under the law. No district attorney in their right mind would try that.

Ditto, probably, for Pride parades in big Tennessee cities. Arresting a drag queen on a Pride float would be a fast ticket to a federal judge throwing the law out on First Amendment grounds.

The real worry over the vague law is the chilling effect it's already having in less prominent circumstances, involving people who don't have immediate access to lawyers or the ability to resist local law enforcement officials who have more parochial views.

The Tennessee law's very vagueness empowers those officials to suppress expressive speech and conduct — despite the disingenuous claims of lawmakers ducking behind the federal obscenity standard.

That will be the argument LGBTQ advocates advance in federal court if and when the time comes. How receptive judges and/or justices will be a to that line of reasoning remains to be seen.