This must be a new and improved constitution I wasn't aware of.
Montana was hit with a roadblock to its ban against transgender surgeries for minors, as a state judge ruled Wednesday to temporarily block the Republican-backed legislation.
Transgender surgeries, mind you.
The law banning puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatment and transgender surgical procedures for minors with gender dysphoria was set to be enforced on Oct. 1, but District Court Judge Jason Marks granted a preliminary injunction on several constitutional grounds.
The ruling says the law, know as SB 99 or the "Youth Health Protection Act," likely violates Montana's Equal Protection Clause because it classifies on the basis of transgender status -- making it a sex-based classification -- and infringes on fundamental rights, subjecting the legislation to strict scrutiny.
Marks also argued the law would not survive strict scrutiny because it does not serve the "purported compelling governmental interests of protecting minor Montanans from pressure to receive harmful medical treatments" and would likely not survive any level of constitutional review. SB 99, according to the judge's ruling, also likely violates the plaintiffs' rights to privacy under the state constitution because the procedures the law seeks to ban are not "medically acknowledged" as "bona fide health risks."
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Wednesday's ruling delivers a temporary victory to the two children who identify as transgender, their parents and two medical providers who sued to prevent the law from taking effect next month.
This is a Fox "News" story. Fox "News" is now foursqure behind the claim that this is a "victory" for transgender children.
A federal judge in Texas ruled on Tuesday that the state's new law limiting public drag performances was an unconstitutional restriction on speech and he permanently forbid enforcement of it.
"Not all people will like or condone certain performances," U.S. District Judge David Hittner wrote. "This is no different than a person's opinion on certain comedy or genres of music, but that alone does not strip First Amendment protection."
More than a dozen states have sought to restrict drag shows over last year, with Texas one of at least four to pass restrictions into law, part of broader Republican efforts to regulate the behavior of LGBT people.
Hittner ruled that the Texas law was discriminatory and improperly vague.
He said drag performances were not inherently obscene, and were the sort of expressive speech protected by the US Constitution's First Amendment.
It has never, ever been claimed before that pornographers had a right to sell porn to children. This "judge" just claimed that.
Adults have right to porn, yes.
Children do not.
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The office of the Texas attorney general defended the law, which, among other restrictions, banned "the exhibition of sexual gesticulations using accessories or prosthetics that exaggerate male or female sexual characteristics" in public, or in venues where people under 18 may see it.
Violations could be punished by fines and a jail sentence of up to one year.
Texas lawmakers said the law was needed to protect children from seeing "sexually explicit" content.