People who fight culture wars often believe what they say, people who lead culture wars often don’t

Russell Moore writes at Christianity Today: 

People have almost given up on bridging the divides in American life. Republicans and Democrats cannot pass any bipartisan legislation or even watch the same Super Bowl halftime shows. And yet throughout the last two decades of polarization, one figure seems to have discerned the code for bringing both sides of the culture war together. His name was Jeffrey Epstein.

The Epstein files have largely been redacted, with parts of them hidden from us, but we’ve seen enough to know that Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell were two of the most corrupt and connected sex criminals in American history. Despite how much is still confusing, we can also see this: On at least one important point, the most outlandish theories were right. There really is a global conspiracy of wealthy, elite sexual perverts fleecing the masses. And many of them were people building a following by telling others that there is a global conspiracy of wealthy, elite sexual perverts fleecing the masses.

Reading through the names of those connected with Epstein, one can hardly believe the range listed there. Some were unsurprising: for instance, creepy filmmaker Woody Allen or the man formerly known as Prince Andrew. But even then, the scope is unsettling. Even the Dalai Lama had to put out a statement noting that he was never involved with Epstein. Just as incredible, many of the people listed were partying with those they spend a lot of time telling the rest of us to hate.

Both Donald Trump and Bill Clinton were apparently friendly with Epstein. The New Age syncretist Deepak Chopra is in the documents many times—often with shady, enigmatic phrases—but so are those who accused the pope of New Age syncretism. With Middle Eastern tensions what they are, still the files include both sheikhs and Israelis. All over the files are connections with both left-wing populist provocateur Noam Chomsky and right-wing populist provocateur Steve Bannon. Epstein makes fun of evangelicals yet recommends a James Dobson article.

How can this be?

Maybe one reason is that Jeffrey Epstein figured out the deep, dark secret of this moment: The people who fight culture wars often believe what they say, but the people who lead culture wars often don’t.

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Montana judge blocks restrictions on public drag performances

Chief District Judge Brian Morris issued a preliminary injunction that blocked the state of Montana from instituting and enforcing its restrictions on drag performances in public venues, reported Jurist. The case is in the US District Court for the District of Montana Butte Division.

Morris found that the plaintiffs in the case were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that House Bill 359 is unconstitutional because it violates the First and Fifth Amendments to the US Constitution.

On the First Amendment claim, Morris noted that 359 imposes both content-based restrictions and viewpoint-based regulation, which leads to a strict scrutiny analysis. To pass strict scrutiny, the legislature must have passed the law to further a compelling governmental interest and narrowly tailored the law to achieve that interest. Morris also noted that 359’s legislative history provided “substantial evidence” that an “impermissible purpose” was behind 359’s enactment. This impermissible purpose was to “target the speech and expression of LGBTQ+ community members, particularly trans, Two-Spirit, and gender non-conforming people.” Morris then concluded that 359 was not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest because “[f]orcing protected expression to take place under a cover of darkness, rather than banning it outright, does not save H.B. 359 from constitutional infirmity.” Thus, Morris concluded that the plaintiffs would likely succeed on their First Amendment challenge. 

For the Fifth Amendment challenge, Morris found that 359 is likely unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. Morris noted that the law “fails to define the conduct it criminalizes ‘with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited.'” Morris also noted that there was “no evidence” submitted that minors face any harm from drag-related events.

House Bill 359 prohibits minors from attending “sexually oriented shows.” Additionally, the law bans drag story hour in public schools and libraries and bans “sexually oriented performances” in public schools, public libraries and public property where minors are present.

This is not the only litigation revolving around state bans on drag performances. Last month, a US federal judge in Texas ruled that the state’s ban on drag performances was unconstitutional and blocked it from going into effect.

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