LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A bill that would criminalize exposing anyone 18 or younger to a drag show in Nebraska was the last one to get a public hearing in this year’s legislative session late Friday. But those opposed to the bill made sure the final hearing went out with a flash of glitter and sequins.

Among scores of people who showed up to voice their opposition were more than a dozen dressed in drag, including heavy makeup, wigs and evening gowns.

The bill’s main sponsor, conservative Sen. Dave Murman of Glenvil, said the legislation is intended to protect children “from being exposed to overly-sexualized and inappropriate behavior far too early.”

The bill defines drag as a performance by someone presenting a gender identity that is different than the performer’s gender assigned at birth. It would make exposing a minor to a drag show a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. The bill comes amidst a national push by conservatives to restrict drag shows, transgender health care, bathroom access and how LGBTQ topics are discussed in schools.

“Those who allow this kind of perversion should be held accountable,” Murman said.

But Murman struggled to answer questions from Judiciary Committee members about how his bill would be enforced without violating the constitutional rights of drag performers, parents and others. Sen. Carol Blood, a Democrat from Bellevue asked how he would draw a line between drag and, say, musicians or actors who dress up in makeup and showy costumes for performances.

When Murman said the difference would come down to how scantily dressed the performer was, another Democrat, Sen. Wendy DeBoer, asked whether that would include a cheerleader in uniform twerking at a game. Murman said it would not.

“What you’re doing is cherry-picking a demographic, and that’s wrong,” Blood said.

The fact that the hearing didn’t begin until after 5 p.m. Friday did little to dissuade the public from turning out to speak on it. The crowd filled the Judiciary Committee hearing room and spilled out nearly 100 deep into the Capitol hallways.

Those supporting the bill expressed conspiracy theories of alleged efforts to indoctrinate children into queer society and used words like “groomers” and “woke culture” to describe drag shows.

But the vast majority of those attending opposed the bill, including two who identify themselves as Polly Pocket and Baby Girl, who often read picture books to children at an Omaha church’s story hour. They defended such events and drag shows as simple fun and read from the children’s book “Unicorns Are the Worst!” at a rally held before the hearing to protest the drag bill and another to ban gender-affirming care for minors.

“It’s just queer people showing queer art,” Polly Pocket said.

The church where they perform, Urban Abbey, has been hosting drag story hours since 2018. But last Saturday, the show was interrupted by an emailed bomb threat that also threatened the church’s pastor and several staff members.

“I have never in my life received an email that said, ‘Today you will die,’” Urban Abbey’s pastor, the Rev. Debra McKnight, said. “They listed my home address and the addresses of several staff members.”

Sunday service the next day was also interrupted by an emailed bomb threat, she said, noting that Omaha police and the FBI are investigating.

The bill could later be advanced or die in committee.

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Walter Cole, better known as the iconic drag queen who performed for decades as Darcelle XV and a fearless advocate for Portland’s LGBTQ+ community, has died of natural causes in Portland, Oregon. He was 92.

Darcelle, who died Thursday, was crowned the world’s oldest working drag performer in 2016 by the Guinness Book of World Records and was regaling audiences until the very end. As a performer, Darcelle was known for hosting the longest-running drag show on the U.S. West Coast. Off stage, Cole, an Army veteran, championed LGBTQ+ rights and charitable work in Portland.

The nightclub that Darcelle opened more than 50 years ago in downtown Portland, Darcelle XV Showplace, posted a statement on Facebook expressing grief and asking for privacy and patience.

The club, which had become a Portland cultural institution by the 1970s, was listed in 2020 on the National Register of Historic Places, making it the first site in Oregon to be nominated specifically for its significance in LGBTQ+ history. In the venue’s early days in the 1970s and 1980s, it was seen as taboo and protesters picketed outside, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

It provided a lifeline for many in the city’s LGBTQ community, including Cole, he told the newspaper in a 2010 interview. Cole preferred female pronouns when performing, but told The Oregonian he preferred male pronouns off-stage.

“If I hadn’t admitted who I was, I’d probably be dead now,” he told the paper. “I’d be sitting on a couch retiring from … management. Not for me.”

“She touched the lives of so many, not only through her performances but also through her fearless community advocacy and charitable works,” said Todd Addams, the interim executive director of Basic Rights Oregon, speaking of Darcelle. “She was nothing short of an icon.”

Writer Susan Stanley described the club a place of “warmth and affection” where performers were “glittering in sequins and satin and a shimmering froth of feathers,” in what’s credited as the first profile of Darcelle XV, published in Willamette Week in 1975.

When speaking of Darcelle, Cole, a gay man, referred to his persona in the third person using female pronouns. “I’m an entertainer with a capital E,” Cole told Stanley. “Darcelle is a character — like in a play — and I work very hard at her.”

Stanley wound up briefly working at the club and becoming Cole’s close friend. She described the performer not only as a talented artist, who also sewed many of the club’s costumes, but as a caring person deeply invested in the LGBTQ+ community and the fight against the social stigma of the time.

“(Darcelle) was just a very, very nurturing person. She encouraged other guys to perform and get out of their shells,” Stanley told the AP in a phone interview.

After decades of advocacy by LGBTQ+ activists organizing for civil rights and freedoms, Stanley said she was saddened to see how drag has become so polarized in today’s political climate.

“It bespeaks a really, really big misunderstanding,” she said. “Politicians wanting to step back decades in attitudes … it’s mystifying and horrifying to me at the same time.”

Cole was born in 1930 and raised in Portland’s Linnton neighborhood. He served in the U.S. Armed Forces and was discharged in the late 1950s, according to the club’s website, which says he used money he received from the military to start his first business.

After dabbling in a coffee store and a jazz club, Cole purchased the space that would become the Darcelle XV Showcase in 1967.

Two years later, he had developed the “alter ego” named Darcelle and came out as gay, according to a profile on the club’s website.

He left his wife and began a relationship with his artistic director. During the 1970s, the Showplace became a popular destination for cabaret and drag performance.

In 1999, Darcelle became the oldest drag performer on the West Coast, after the closing of San Francisco’s drag venue Finocchio’s Club.

On Friday, fans including Portland’s mayor mourned Cole’s death on social media. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden said in a social media post that “Darcelle carved out an unforgettable chapter in Portland’s history” with “pioneering courage.”

Darcelle XV Showplace said that details of a public memorial will be announced and all shows will go on as scheduled, per Darcelle’s wishes.

“Please join us and celebrate her legacy and memory, thank you in advance for your continued support,” the club’s statement said.

___

Claire Rush is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. You can follow Rush on Twitter @ClaireARush.

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United Nations (AP) — Humanity’s survival depends on how people manage water, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday at the end of a three-day conference on global water resources during which developing nations made urgent calls for help with cleaner drinking water and better sanitation.

“All of humanity’s hopes for the future depend, in some way, on charting a new course to sustainably manage and conserve water,” Guterres said in his closing remarks.

This includes rational use of water for agriculture and more aggressive action against climate change, he said, and water “needs to be at the center of the global political agenda.”

The U.N. World Water Development Report, issued on the eve of the conference, says 26% of the world’s population — 2 billion people — don’t have access to safe drinking water and 46% — 3.6 billion people — lack access to basic sanitation. U.N. research also shows that almost half the world’s people will suffer severe water stress by 2030.

The conference included many verbal pledges to improve water supplies, but fewer detailed commitments translating ambition into improved daily life for ordinary people.

““We have such beautiful, ambitious policies, but in a way they are unfeasible,” said Lina Taing, senior researcher at the global think tank United Nations University.

She said when it comes to getting people clean water and sanitation, “we know that we are completely off track.” Taing said the world needs to increase its actions “four times.”

Throughout the conference, water-stressed nations, particularly those in the developing world, told U.N. members of their need for international aid to provide their people with drinking water and sanitation systems.

“Waging a war on two fronts simultaneously, to address water issues and climate change, is no mean feat, especially for a small island nation like Kiribati which has very limited resources at its disposal,” said Teburoro Tito, U.N. representative from the island nation of fewer than 200,000 people in the middle of the Pacific. He said Kiribati was particularly ill-equipped to respond to natural disasters.

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