Thursday, May 19, 2011
Phillips The Last Stand Against HB 600
Posted by Betsy Phillips on Thu, May 19, 2011 at 7:11 AM
On Wednesday, the House reconciled their version of the "You may not not discriminate" bill with the Senate's and sent the bill to the the governor's desk. Activists have taken to Twitter ramping up a last-ditch effort to convince Gov. Haslam to veto it.
This legislation stinks on two levels. Not only is it an incredible intrusion into the business of city governments (and one wonders how Republicans will like it, should this legislation pass, when Democrats are back in power and wielding this precedent against conservative municipalities), but more importantly, it really screws over transgender and intersex people. I mean, fine, Nashville and the state are having a spat so that a secretive cadre of unelected men can have their way. That sucks and is mortifying and un-American, but there will be lawsuits.
But the bill also defines "sex" as meaning and referring "only to the designation of an individual person as male or female as indicated on the individual’s birth certificate." And that is terrible for people who were assigned the wrong sex at birth. Already state law prevents them from fixing their birth certificates. This is saying they can't legally be anything but what's on their birth certificate.
And what does this have to do with the rest of the bill, except for being a mean-spirited swipe at some of our most vulnerable neighbors?
Anyway, Haslam has shown little to no leadership so far, so I imagine that, since Harwell and Ramsey are fine with this, it'll get signed. But it'd be nice to see the governor decide to treat his position as something other than ceremonial.
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