Tennessee Anti-Gay Lawmakers Keep Voting To Protect Lawbreakers Not Kids

Why do Tennessee lawmakers keep voting against the interests of their own children? Take, for instance, Tennessee Republican Tea Party lawmaker Jeremy Faison. Faison repeatedly supports bills and votes to protect lawbreakers — or to make their criminal actions legal, rather than supporting law-abiding citizens —  including children — and businesses who are the victims of the lawbreakers Faison is protecting.

Case in point: Faison is pushing a bill that would protect gun owners who just “didn’t see” a sign prohibiting guns. Called the “guns in parking lots” bill, the Nashville Business Journal reports Faison’s bill “isn’t designed to circumvent prohibitions on guns, but to give gun owners a defense in cases where they didn’t see a sign prohibiting guns.”

“Sorry, officer, I didn’t see the sign that said, ‘No Guns’.” What’s next? “Sorry officer, I didn’t see the sign that says, ‘Stop’?” Either way, someone could get hurt. Faison was elected to protect the law-abiding citizens, not to make laws to protect the ones who are victimizing the law-abiding citizens.

Nashville Public Radio adds:

It’s not a “get out of jail free” card, but it gives an out-of-bounds gun carrier a legal excuse.

Representative Jeremy Faison, a Republican from Cosby, says his bill is supposed to cover inadvertent slip-ups – you can say you didn’t see the sign saying “No Guns Allowed.” Even at a university.

“You brought up the University of Tennessee. This is not saying it’s OK to have a gun there. It’s saying, you have a defense, should you have had a gun.”

Or, take a proposed anti-bullying bill Faison railed against.

On Tuesday, Faison stood on the floor of the Tennessee House and blamed poor parenting –while exempting bullies — as the cause of gay youth and teen suicides.

“We can’t continue to legislate everything,” Rep. Faison said. “We’ve had some horrible things happen in America and in our state, and there’s children that have actually committed suicide, but I will submit to you today that they did not commit suicide because of somebody bullying them. They committed suicide because they were not instilled the proper principles of where their self-esteem came from at home.”

To his credit, Faison, after deleting this reporter’s post on Faison’s Facebook page, offered a quick — albeit useless, though revealing — apology.

The Tennessean reported:

Faison later issued a statement saying that he regretted the choice of words and that his opposition to cyberbullying legislation is rooted in a belief that lawmakers should not criminalize childhood bullying.

“After reviewing my comments on the House Floor today, I regret what was a poor choice of words. My true intent was to protect children from becoming criminals. Suicide has touched my family, and I would never want a parent or family member to feel they were responsible for such an unimaginable tragedy.”

Two weeks ago, Rep. Faison also voted for the infamous “monkey bill,” which protects teachers who teach creationism, and those who welcome “debate” on culture war issues like global warming. (Creationism and climate change are accepted science facts, not debatable issues. Only in America, where Republicans have hijacked the national conversation on these issues, is there any “debate,” and that debate is not based in science.)

So, should children get harmed by guns in parking lots or by classmates on playgrounds, or by teachers spreading falsehoods, Rep. Faison wants to protect not the innocent, not the victims, not the children, but the perpetrators of crimes that harm people.

Perhaps we should send Faison to Congress, where he can protect BP Oil from going to jail for the now two-year old “spill,” the Wall Street Bankers who caused the 2008 economic crisis, and the two dozen members of the Secret Service who hired prostitutes?