Organizers of a Pride festival in Naples, Florida, were forced to move planned drag performances indoors this weekend after a federal court issued a last-minute stay on a previous ruling that would have allowed the shows to take place in a city park.

The months-long legal battle began earlier this year, when city officials refused to grant Naples Pride a permit to hold the event in Cambier Park, citing increased security costs due to potential anti-LGBTQ+ protests. Naples Pride sued in April, and the following month, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction allowing the festival’s family-friendly drag performances to take place in the park on June 7.

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A city tried to limit drag performances at Pride. A federal judge just told them to back off.
The city also tried to charge event organizers a $36,000 security fee. A judge said no way.

In his May 12 ruling, Judge John E. Steele wrote that the city’s requirement that Naples Pride pay $36,000 for a security permit and restrict attendance to anyone over 18 “threatened injury to [the Pride organizers’] First Amendment rights.”

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However, as the Naples Daily News reported last week, the city appealed Steele’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which issued a stay of the preliminary injunction on June 6.

While Steele had ruled that Cambier Park is a traditional public forum where freedom of speech is most protected, according to the paper, the appeals court ruled that Naples Pride would “not be substantially injured by a stay because it can hold the drag performance under the same two permit conditions that applied to the last two performances, in 2023 and 2024.”

In May 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a notorious bill aimed at banning minors from attending drag performances, forcing Naples Pride and other celebrations around the state to move drag shows indoors. The law was overturned later the same year, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up the case. But in 2024, Naples Pride was nonetheless again forced to hold its Pride drag performances indoors to avoid a $44,000 permitting fee.

Referring to the city’s concerns about anti-LGBTQ+ protests, Jonah Knobler, an attorney representing Naples Pride, told the Naples Daily News that the Eleventh Circuit’s June 6 decision “goes against generations of legal precedent holding that the government cannot restrict speech just because those who don’t like that speech may break the law.”

“We respect the court, but we strongly disagree with what it did here,” Knobler added. “This isn’t the end of the legal road — or the fight for free expression in Florida.”

As local ABC affiliate WPLG 10 reported, Naples Pride Fest took place in Cambier Park on June 7, though its drag shows were moved to nearby Norris Community Center. Despite moving the performances indoors and restricting attendance to those over 18, the shows still drew anti-LGBTQ+ protesters, one of whom was arrested.

ACLU of Florida legal director Daniel Tilley told WPLG 10 that the fight against the city’s restrictions would continue. “We’re going to be taking depositions, gathering evidence, talking to those commissioners, talking to all the folks that were involved in the decisions to restrict Naples Pride unconstitutionally, and we’re going to present all that information to the court,” Tilley said.

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