The Tennessee state legislature on Wednesday advanced two separate pieces of legislation that target LGBT individuals, eliciting outcries from the business community.
The state House on Wednesday passed a bill that would allow counselors to deny services to individuals based on sincerely held beliefs, letting them refuse to help gay individuals. State Rep. Dan Howell (R) has pushed the legislation in response to a change in the American Counseling Association’s ethics code that tells counselors not to refer clients “based solely on the counselor’s personally held values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors.”
The state House education committee also passed a bill on Wednesday that would require students to use the bathroom that aligns with their sex at birth, reviving legislation that the committee tabled a month ago due to concern from some Republicans.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) has expressed concern over the bill and whether it could cost the state education funding from the federal government. He’s argued that schools should decide their bathroom policies.
And the business community has already voiced opposition to the legislation. Executives from four companies signed onto a letter Wednesday urging legislators not to pass the bill regarding school bathrooms. Representatives of the state’s tourism and theater industry have also warned that the bill could hurt the states economy and cost Tennesseans jobs.
Will the damned Old South ever give up yearning for the 19th Century?
Hey, Cletus, your legislation may allow those counselors to deny service. Your legislation, however, will not prevent the ACA from pulling said counselors’ accreditation.
Those with deeply held homophobic, racists, or misogynistic feelings, please seek help.
Signed, The Rest of 21st Century America
These people can’t help themselves. Well, I say we make them feel it in the pocket until they understand that the country isn’t going back.
What gets me is that the very arguments that they continuously make about LGBT people mirror or are identical to the same arguments that these people’s ancestors made about Blacks during Segregation. We’ve kind of forgotten how often they used religious freedom to perpetuate anti-Black legislation and sentiment.