Tennessee Moves Back ... Wards

So, with the earlier post for today, I was all, "Squee, look at South Carolina and its first openly gay legislator!" But it was while reading about Jason Elliott, that I learned there are now just seven states that have no gay members of their state government, and one of those is Tennessee; so, then this story is not so surprising ...

In Tennessee, the same-sex marriage debate is back in the state legislature with after a new bill were proposed because, apparently, Tennessee didn’t get that memo from the Supreme Court nearly two years ago about The Gays and marriage.

Republican Senator, Mae Beavers, and Republican Representative, Mark Pody, have introduced ... again ... the Tennessee Natural Marriage Defense Act that seeks to redefine marriage in Tennessee as between one man and one woman no matter what the Supreme Court says.

Sadly, both Beavers and Pody—who sound like a couple of cartoon animals—aren’t commenting on their new proposal perhaps because the idea has already been settled ... by the Supremes and by the Tennessee legislature.

Still, Beavers and Pody are arguing that, despite the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling, that same-sex marriage is unlawful and all unlawful orders “remain unlawful and should be resisted.”

Oh honey, this is the wrong kind of resistance. This kind leads to people like Beavers and Pody on the unemployment line filling out paperwork that states that their last job was "Being Haters.”

The time and date for this new try at a Tennessee Natural Marriage Defense Act has not been set but I do believe it will suffer the same fate as the first time ... when lawmakers voted it down. However, still up for debate in Tennessee is one of those Bathroom Bills. As in North Carolina, the Tennessee anti-transgender bill would require "students in public institutions of higher education to use restrooms and locker rooms that are assigned to persons of the same sex as that shown on the students' birth certificates."

And, like their anti-same-sex marriage bill, this newish Hate Bill is also a rehash of a bill that was filed, and defeated, in 2016.

Will Tennessee never learn? Or does the state want to end up like North Carolina and lose millions of dollars in revenue and see some of their representatives, and perhaps even their governor, “flushed” from office?

Here’s the queer deal, Tennessee: it’s time you got with the program. You cannot force gay people back into a closet and you cannot deny us marriage ... we have it and we aren’t giving it up, even in your backwards state.

And as for the bathroom bill, please try to find at least one example of a situation where a transgender person harmed a cisgender person while using a restroom and maybe then we can have a discussion; using a bathroom is just that, using a bathroom, and to try and mask it as anything else is despicable.

So, Tennessee, won't you join us in the 21st century, or do you wish to face the wrath of the 300 companies—calling themselves Tennessee Thrives—that are fighting religious objection and these so-called bathroom bills. 

And, possibly more important to politicians, do you want to take the chance that a lot of you, mostly Republicans, will be out of a job sooner rather than later?

Wavy TV

Can I Get An Amen: Anti-Marriage Equality Campaign Backfires Miserably In Tennessee

Well well well … how quickly things change.

On Monday I posted about a couple of bills proposed in both South Carolina and Tennessee that sought to nullify all same-sex marriages in the state and overturn the Supreme Court ruling of last summer ... see post HERE.

Now, I did say the bills had an uphill, almost impossible, fight, but I wasn’t aware of how quickly, in Tennessee at least, people would stand up against these new Hate Bills.

And it’s all about the money, because that bill in Tennessee, the one proposed by Representative, and Republican, of course, Mark Pody, who calls himself a “fiscal conservative,” is headed for failure when people learned that it would cost the state almost $9 billion in federal funds annually if it passes.  

So, rather than approve Pody’s Hate Bill, the Rutherford County Commission amended it so that now it actually calls on the General Assembly to uphold the U.S. Constitution, which of course includes the freedom to marry for same-sex couples. 

Oh, Karma, you’re a bitch, but sometimes you’re just so beautiful, too.

Now, while it just a county resolution, it is a welcome response to the four or so counties in Tennessee that have tried to pass bills to outlaw same-sex marriage.

And to make it even better, all this push by these so-called fair and family groups, like the Family Action Council of Tennessee, has once again stirred up the hornet’s nest that is the LGBT community and our allies in that state.

"The media response to the Tennessee 'Natural Marriage Defense Act' is just where we want it — overwhelmed by the cost of the legislation! It helps when we achieve victories like Rutherford County. The more we slow down, amend, or contain those anti-marriage equality resolutions, the less drive state legislators have to pass the ... Natural Marriage Defense Act. Despite how horrible the bill is, we're all firing on all cylinders." — Chris Sanders, Executive Director of Tennessee Equality Project

And better still, at that meeting in Rutherford County, nearly 100 people who support marriage equality showed up, with six of them speaking against the proposed anti-gay resolution, while no one … no one … one spoke in favor of it, and commissioners were forced to water it down so much that it could actually be interpreted as an endorsement of same-sex marriage.

Boom.

Mic drop.

NCRM