Governor Signs ‘Natural and Ordinary Meaning’ Bill Which Strips Rights From Same-Sex Couples, Women

‘LGBT Erasure’ Law Could Deprive Same-Sex Couples of Rights in Adoption, Birth Certificate Issues

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam has just signed a highly controversial and likely unconstitutional bill that will make it more difficult for same-sex couples to adopt children, and could even deprive women of property. The “Natural and Ordinary Meaning” bill specifies that for any law or government form where terms are not specifically defined the “natural and ordinary meaning” of the words int he law apply.

For example, the phrase, “All men are created equal” in Tennessee would mean that women are not included in that precept. 

Lawmakers passed the bill, HB1111, one week ago today, and sent it to the Republican governor’s desk. 

By law in Tennessee, a same-sex couple could be refused the right to have both parents’ names on a birth or adoption certificate, if the law or form specifies “husband and wife,” or “mother and father.”

Jim Obergefell, the main plaintiff in the 2015 Supreme Court case that delivered marriage for same-sex couples nationwide, trafveled to the Tennessee capitol this week to advocate against the signing of the bill.

Should anyone think this is not an attack on LGBT people and same-sex couples, the bill “was heavily lobbied for by the Family Action Council of Tennessee,” the Nashville Post reports. “In videos, blog posts and podcasts, FACT head David Fowler has said the legislation was necessary to ensure Tennessee courts only accept a ‘traditional’ definition of family.”

“So when we say husband, we mean a man. When we say father, we mean a man. This is an attempt to tell the court in cases like Knoxville and in future cases, when we use a word, we mean for it to mean what everybody thinks it means,” Fowler said.

Senate sponsor Sen. John Stevens (R-Huntington) at first said during last week’s debate that the bill wasn’t about same-sex marriage and LGBT rights but finally admitted he hoped the legislation would “do what Justice Scalia emphasized people should do and that is look at the meaning of the word at the time the legislation was passed,” referring to Scalia’s dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges.

One Republican lawmaker, Sen. Richard Briggs, during debate on the legislation, lamented “these complex issues” they have to face. 

“When you have same-sex couples and try to define better what are — what do parental rights mean when you have maybe a natural mother and a not natural other parent. And the same and be said, for fathers,” Briggs said.

HRC noted last week the law “would impact state constitutional protections for women by prohibiting state courts from reading the term “man” to also include ‘woman.’ The Tennessee law requiring no ‘man’s’ services or property be taken without consent or compensation could suddenly be interpreted to exclude the same protections for women.”

GLAAD Vice President Zeke Stokes says the governor “has now placed the future of the state’s economy and the well-being of the LGBTQ community in jeopardy.” 

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