Katie Kerekes, FISM News
[elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″]
The state of Tennessee continues to make headlines as Republican leaders are taking a stand against the sexualization of minors.
On Monday. the state senate continued this trend, passing a bill that will define sex in the state code as one’s anatomy at birth. The move, however, could potentially cost the state an estimated $2 billion in federal funding, as the Biden administration is looking to strong-arm conservative states to promote liberal ideologies.
“I mean, if defining sex, as it has traditionally meant for years in the dictionary, costs us federal funds, there’s something wrong with Washington DC,” Sen. Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield) said on the Senate floor.
Filed by Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood) and sponsored by Roberts, Senate Bill 1440, was passed along party lines in an overwhelming majority as Tennessee GOP members doubled down on their position.
“It’s not a novel definition. It’s not a new definition,” Roberts added. “We’re not doing anything different for us to define terms when we need to in the code.”
Roberts says the bill applies the definition of sex as outlined within a section of the Tennessee code concerning school facilities to state law, and challenges criticisms that label SB1440 as “anti-trans.”
“There’s a definition of ‘sex’ in the code in Title 49, and as far as I’m concerned it’s in the wrong place. That’s what I’m doing. And if anybody wants to read into it, or make it something that it’s not, that’s beyond my ability to answer, but that’s all I’m trying to do with this bill,” Roberts asserted.
Democratic members of the senate expressed anger at the passing of the bill. Rep. Gloria Johnson refuted the bill saying, “We know hate when we see it, and we will call it out when we see it.”
GOP members maintain that the bill only clarifies what many say is moral alignment with obvious biological distinctions within creation.
“God created man, He created woman. He put them in this world to procreate and to read and replenish the world,” Republican Rep. Rusty Grills echoed. “And when we continue to spit in the face of God as a nation, we’re going in the wrong direction.”
“In my view, this body should do what’s right regardless of the cost,” said Bulso. “I don’t care what it costs to do what’s right.”
According to the Tennessee General Assembly’s website, the bill moves onto the state’s House for a vote, and if passed, would take effect July 1, 2023, with “public welfare requiring it.”