An excerpt from the long majority opinion (by Judge Andrew Brasher, signed by eight judges) yesterday in HM Florida-ORL, LLC v. Governor:
This appeal is about the constitutionality of Florida's Protection of Children Act. The Act makes it a misdemeanor to "knowingly admit a child to an adult live performance."
The Act defines an "adult live performance" as a live performance that depicts "nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or specific sexual activities [as defined], lewd conduct, or the lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts" and meets three additional criteria. The three additional criteria are that the performance "[p]redominantly appeals to a prurient, shameful, or morbid interest," "[i]s patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community of [Florida] as a whole with respect to what is suitable material or conduct for the age of the child present," and "[t]aken as a whole, is without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for the age of the child present."
The court held, among other things, that the law isn't unconstitutionally overbroad, because it basically tracked the "obscenity-as-to-minors" standard that the Supreme Court and the Eleventh Circuit had validated:
