Tennessee House Education Committee Advances “Don’t Say Gay” Bill
April 18, 2012 by Dan Rafter, Online Campaigns Manager
Tennessee’s infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which would ban teachers in the Volunteer State’s elementary and middle schools from discussing homosexuality, cleared a House committee by a 8-7 vote yesterday, according to the Tennessean.
The House Education Committee passed the bill despite Tennessee’s Republican governor speaking out against it, saying he would “love to see the legislature focus on some other issues right now.”
Rep. Joey Hensley, a Republican and one of the discriminatory bill’s sponsors, said of his support for the legislation: “I have two children — in the third- and fourth-grade — and don’t want them to be exposed to things I don’t agree with…Even though the state board disallows this now, I’m afraid it does happen, and sex education is talked about in a way that it is acceptable.”
The Education Committee Chairman, Richard Montgomery, is among those who voted against the bill. It now goes to the calendar committee before receiving a full House vote.
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