In a plot twist that reads less like a court filing and more like a very expensive lesson in constitutional law, the city of St. George, Utah is now officially in the business of paying for what it tried not to host in the first place: drag.
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Utah’s Beehive State Bill Comes Due
A federal judge has ordered the city to pay $350,000 in legal fees to the Southern Utah Drag Stars after the group prevailed in a years-long First Amendment battle over a denied permit for an all-ages drag show in a city-owned public park. The decision, issued by District Judge David Nuffer on April 24, confirms what the courts had already established in this Utah case: the denial didn’t hold up under constitutional scrutiny, and the bill for that argument has now arrived in full.
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The case began in 2023 when the performers, along with their CEO Mitski Avalox, sued after St. George, Utah refused to grant permission for the event. The city said it was simply enforcing event regulations, but the court ultimately found the denial crossed into unconstitutional territory, violating free speech and equal protection principles.
“It’s Policy” vs. The Constitution
With backing from the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, the performers argued the decision wasn’t an isolated administrative call, but part of a wider pattern. As ACLU attorney Emerson Sykes put it, via AP:
“This is the latest offense in a larger pattern of attacks discriminating against gender-diverse and LGBTQ+ people and their rights in Utah and throughout the country,” said ACLU attorney Emerson Sykes.
A 2025 settlement already resolved the core dispute, including compensation and a public apology. The latest ruling simply closes the financial loop in this Beehive State storyline: the city must also cover the legal costs accumulated over nearly three years of litigation.
In other words, St. George didn’t just lose the argument—it also picked up the tab.
And somewhere between the park permit, the federal filings, and the final invoice, Utah’s latest courtroom chapter quietly lands on the same familiar lesson: constitutional rights tend to come with receipts.
Source: St.George News