Gays Against Groomers calls out Hamburger Mary’s: ‘Please just leave kids alone’

ORLANDO, Fla. (FLV) – Gays Against Groomers wants Hamburger Mary’s restaurant to “leave kids alone” after the restaurant filed a lawsuit against the state for new legislation that penalizes businesses who admit children to “adult live performances.”

“Please just leave kids alone. This is doing more damage to us too, as gay and lesbian Americans, and even trans people. The majority of our community just wants to live our lives and not push anything on anyone, let alone children,” Jaimee Michell, the founder and president of Gays Against Groomers said, in an interview with Florida’s Voice.

The new law authorizes Florida to fine, suspend, or revoke the license of any public establishment that admits a child to “adult live performances” that depict or simulate nudity, sexual conduct, or lewd exposure.

The restaurant claimed the state “seeks to explicitly restrict, or chill speech and expression protected by the First Amendment based on its content, message, and its messenger.”

The company posted a 20 minute video May 23 that said, “I am posting this link to show what parents bring their children to see. Old video but a favorite. No nudity, no language, no grooming.”

Florida’s Voice discovered a part of the video, which shows what appears to be a small girl putting cash in a drag queens chest.

Mitchell said Hamburger Mary’s “exposed themselves” as still being “completely inappropriate and grooming.”

“There is a little child putting $1 bill in this drag queens boobs, the prosthetics that they wear, and that’s completely inappropriate and I’m really tired of people pretending otherwise,” Mitchell explained.

“I’m tired of our community giving this a pass,” Mitchell said.

“When we were fighting for equality, and just the same rights as every American, I could have never envisioned that this is where we would be, and it’s shocking to see it just kind of normalized,” Mitchell said.

Gays Against Groomers is a 501(c)4 organization of gay people who “oppose the recent trend of indoctrinating, sexualizing and medicalizing children under the guise of ‘LGBTQIA+.'”

The organization directly opposes the “sexualization and indoctrination of children,” including drag queen story hours, drag shows involving children, the transitioning and medicalization of minors, and gender theory being taught in the classroom, according to their website.

Mitchell said drag has always been a “sexualized form of entertainment” and “it’s always been for adults.”

“It’s okay for adults to have sexualized entertainment, but the red line is children,” she explained.

The lawsuit said legislators and the governor “made it clear that this law was created to prevent children from drag shows.”

“This statute cannot survive strict scrutiny. While the government has a recognized interest in ‘protecting children from harmful materials,’ Florida law already protects children from obscenity and sexually explicit content and materials,” the lawsuit explained.

Mitchell said they have drag queens in their organization who are “repulsed” by what they are seeing, and said they would “never perform for children.”

Florida’s Voice Reporter Amber Jo Cooper posted the video with the caption, “Hamburger Mary’s: ‘No nudity, no language, no grooming.’ *posts video of grooming*”

Some users online defended the incident.

“And how is this grooming? We all want to hear your theory?” User @GettingEricD said.

Cooper asked Mitchell her thoughts on the comments.

“It clearly is – children can’t go to strip clubs, right, for a reason. I don’t understand how this is any different. You know, in the strip club, they’re fully nude. Here, they are dressed very, very promiscuously. Drag has always been a sexualized form of entertainment – it’s always been for adults,” Mitchell said.

“It’s okay for adults to have sexualized entertainment, but the red line is children,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said everyone can agree “no child should go to a strip club,” and these events should be treated the same way.

Reporter Chris Nelson posted another video the venue shared showing a 6-year old boy picking a “drag name” at the Sunday drag show.

“There is nothing more beautiful than seeing parents who love and support their children whatever that entails,” the venue wrote on Facebook.

“I urge these LGBTQ people that think that this is okay – to really think twice about what you’re doing, because you are setting our community back decades,” Mitchell said.

“We fought for a very long time, our gay and lesbian elders as well, to be seen as not pedophiles, essentially, and like just like every other person, and that’s what the majority of our community is,” Mitchell said.

“People doing this, it is turning people off from gay people and trans people in general. And, it’s affecting all of us that want nothing to do with this,” Mitchell explained.

Mitchell welcomes new members to Gays Against Groomers, as they continue to grow across the country.