Tennessee has been a toxic place on issues of sex and gender recently, with the University of Tennessee recently caving to Fox News’ complaints and cutting funding for students’ “Sex Week” programming. This week there was some good news, however, because two anti-gay pieces of legislation died in committee.

The first was the odious “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which was originally designed to censor school officials and teachers from discussing homosexuality in grades K-8. Versions introduced this year included requirements that school counselors out LGBT students to their families or prevent counselors from providing mental health services whatsoever. The bill did not receive a second when it was moved in the House Education Subcommittee and subsequently died. State Rep. John Ragan (R), who sponsored the bill because “it was about school safety,” has promised to reintroduce it next year.

Another bill targeted institutions of higher education, threatening to cut support for campus police if universities required student groups to abide by “all-comers” nondiscrimination policies. The intention behind such measures, like one recently passed in Virginia, is to allow Christian groups to discriminate against gay students. Tennessee Attorney General Robert Cooper (D) called the bill unconstitutional and Gov. Bill Haslam (R) said he saw no reason to have the bill considered. Last year, he vetoed a similar bill targeting university nondiscrimination statements. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Mark Pody (R), took the bill “off notice,” killing it, but his apparent vendetta against Vanderbilt University’s “all-comers” policy suggests this isn’t the last of his efforts.

The death of these two bills is a nice reprieve for Tennessee’s LGBT community, but it seems neither of these fights is permanently over.

Tennessee’s odious “Don’t Say Gay” bill has not yet advanced, but it might be getting another new provision to make it even worse. Its original intent — to ban teachers in grades K-8 from even mentioning homosexuality — was bad enough, and this year’s bill also includes a provision to out gay students to their parents. Now House sponsor Rep. John Ragan (R) is offering a new amendment that would completely bar school personnel from providing any kind of “mental health” guidance, according to WBIR:

A measure in the works in the Tennessee legislature would bar school personnel from advising students on “mental health” issues, ‘lifestyle’ choices or other conditions or activities outside career and educational counseling” unless they have been licensed as a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist. [...]

“School counselors in general are licensed, hired and paid to be counseling on academic and career education,” said state Rep. John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge. “We do not pay them nor license them to counsel on anything else.” [...]

Teachers, counselors and principals instead would be asked to give students a referral for psychiatric care if they bring up mental health or lifestyle issues. School districts would also have to train educators on how to handle such questions.

It’s troubling enough that LGBT students would not be able to ask any counselor about their issues — and would be told they need to see a therapy. But Ragan could not be more wrong; this amendment completely undermines the work many counselors do every day, including providing support for depression, suicidal thinking, eating disorders, problems at home, grief, and overall social development. Tennessee already requires that school counselors have completed a graduate degree in counseling, as opposed to just education. Ragan is trying to prevent them from doing the very job they are expected to do.

This is the significant overstep from the usual assumptions about “parents’ rights,” the line of reasoning that attempts to justify censorship in schools, as this bill does. The entire point of school counselors is to supplement what support students may or may not get at home. Ragan’s amendment is nothing short of a guarantee to make schools less safe and ensure young people have even less support for their academic success.

(HT: The New Civil Rights Movement.)

A new poll from Middle Tennessee State University shows that a solid 62 percent of Tennesseans oppose marriage equality, while only 28 percent in favor. This opposition is significantly higher than is often found across several southern states. Nevertheless, 57 percent also oppose the odious “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which prohibits schools from discussing sexual orientation until after 8th grade — which includes related anti-bullying efforts — and only 31 percent support it. Additionally, 49 percent oppose the bill’s new provision requiring school officials to notify parents of students’ sexuality, while only 33 percent such a provision. Interestingly a position on marriage was not necessarily predictive of a position on the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation.

It seems clear that Tennessee is a particularly toxic place for LGBT people, but even so, even Tennesseans realize that the outright censorship of homosexuality and violation of young people’s privacy are wrong.

Tennessee state Sen. Stacey Campfield (R) is making the press rounds to stump for the new and worsened version of his odious “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which prohibits teachers in grades K-8 from acknowledging the existence of homosexuality and also requires school officials to out gay students to their families. He has already made it clear he believes homosexuality itself is dangerous, and in an interview with TMZ, he doubled down on that absurd belief. After explaining the AIDS epidemic in Africa by claiming that sodomy was more common there among heterosexuals, Campfield went on to compare being gay to using heroin:

TMZ: If they’re going to engage in homosexual acts anyway, why not teach them how to protect themselves from [HIV]?

CAMPFIELD: You know, you could say the same thing about kids who are shooting heroin. We need to show them the best ways to shoot up. No, we don’t. Why do we have to hypersexualize little children? Why can’t we just let little kids be little kids for a while? Why do we have to have little kids be…?

TMZ: Do you believe in sex education period?

CAMPFIELD: …If you can show me where it works, great.

Watch the whole interview (HT: Alvin McEwen):

Sex education actually works when a comprehensive safe sex curriculum is taught, and fails in states that only teach abstinence. Southern states like Mississippi, which has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the country, are starting to realize this. It’s doubtful, however, that Campfield would be interested in such facts.

Campfield’s understanding of homosexuality is limited to the performance of sex acts. It seems beyond his comprehension that those “little kids” might have same-sex parents. He has no sympathy for those children who might realize at a very young age that they are not the same as all the other kids. Discussing the existence of gay people does nothing to “sexualize” young people, whatever that would even mean. It’s no surprise that the TMZ crew had to wrestle with the idea that Campfield had ever been elected; his understanding of the world around him is severely narrow.

Tennessee state Sen. Stacey Campfield (R) has reintroduced his “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which not only prevents public school educators from discussing the existence of LGBT people, but now also would mandate teachers and counselors out LGBT students to their parents without their consent. Campfield’s views on homosexuality live up to the threat of his odious bill, according to Nashville Public Radio:

CAMPFIELD: I can’t speak from personal experience, but being homosexual in and of itself is not deadly or dangerous. The act of homosexuality is very dangerous.

He made similar comments in a video interview with The Tennessean, blaming the likelihood of getting AIDS for his “deadly” condemnation. Watch it:

Campfield is borrowing his narrative from the “love the sinner, hate the sin” motto adopted by the Catholic Church and other religious groups to sugarcoat their continued stigmatization of gays and lesbians. A person’s sexual orientation is a core part of their identity that transcends any sexual behavior they might engage in. To separate the two is to erase the community entirely.

But Campfield’s views are more absurd than that. He doesn’t just believe that homosexuality is “dangerous” because of the potential spread of HIV, he actually believes that AIDS “came from the homosexual community — it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall.” He also believes that homosexuality is a “learned behavior” comparable to bestiality. Defending his bill, Campfield has described any teacher who might mention the existence of gay people as “radical,” because they ought to “spend more time on arithmetic.”

Tennessee’s so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay‘ bill died with the adjournment of the state assembly last year. But now the measure is back — with new, harsher requirements.

The bill, SB 234, still bars Tennessee teachers from discussing any facet of “non-heterosexual” sexuality with children in grades K-8. But the newest iteration also includes a provision requiring teachers or counselors to inform the parents of some students who identify themselves as LGBT. State Sen. Stacey Campfield (R), who authored the bill the first time around and again introduced it this time, calls out students who might be “at risk,” but leaves the interpretation of that behavior to the teacher:

The general assembly recognizes that certain subjects are particularly sensitive and are, therefore, best explained and discussed within the home. Because of its complex societal, scientific, psychological, and historical implications, human sexuality is one such subject. Human sexuality is best understood by children with sufficient maturity to grasp its complexity and implications [...]

A school counselor, nurse, principal or assistant principal from counseling a student who is engaging in, or who may be at risk of engaging in, behavior injurious to the physical or mental health and well-being of the student or another person; provided, that wherever possible such counseling shall be done in consultation with the student’s parents or legal guardians. Parents or legal guardians of students who receive such counseling shall be notified as soon as practicable that such counseling has occurred

Family rejection is a serious risk for LGBT youth. Kids who are LGBT often face alienation, if not outright abandonment, because they come out. Forty percent of homeless youth are LGBT, and many of them report that the reason they left home was to escape an environment hostile to their sexual orientation. LGBT youth who experience family rejection are at high risk for depression and suicide.

Republican legislators in Tennessee are circulating a resolution that would condemn their own party’s governor, Bill Haslam (R), for choosing not to fire a gay person on his staff. The resolution, which has been signed by nine country Republican chapters so far, would also denounce the Governor for keeping a Muslim woman in his employ, and for not supporting two highly conservative pieces of legislation.

Haslam did not hire the Muslim or gay employees. Rather, he simply kept them on the payroll after a change of leadership.

The Tennessean obtained copies of the counties’ nearly-identical resolutions, which say Haslam has “forced this GOP organization to lose the confidence in our Governor during an election year.” One of the reasons listed for why Republicans have lost confidence, it continues, is that Haslam allowed “openly homosexuals to make policy decisions”:

According to the Tennessean on January 15, 2012, Governor Haslam admitted to retaining 85% of the Democrat Governor Phil Bredesen’s Executive Service Employees.

One of the latest Executive Service Employees has included Samar Ali, an expert in Shariah Compliant Finance which is one of the many ways Islamic terrorism is funded. She is also a one-time Obama appointee and her family has a long history of supporting the Democrat Party.[...]

Allowed and retained openly homosexuals to make policy decisions in the Department of Children’s Services.

Some of the county party leaders have since equivocated a bit on the language used in the resolutions. Talking Points Memo, which spoke with one of the county GOP chairs, reports that the man refused to comment on the line about “openly homosexuals.” According to TPM, he said “I don’t know how to respond appropriately to that one.”

Haslam has been minimally supportive of the LGBT community in his state; he opposed the state’s controversial ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill (but supported an abstinence-only bill that had the same effect), and protected LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination policies on college campuses in Tennessee. But the Governor is far from a gay rights’ activist — he opposes marriage equality and thinks a non-discrimination requirement for employers is a regulatory burden.