A bill in Tennessee that would allow parents to opt children out of LGBTQ-inclusive instruction is now headed to Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s desk.
The legislation passed in the House on a 64-32 vote on Wednesday. Last week, it passed in the state Senate on a 24-6 vote.
House Bill 0529 and Senate Bill 1229 would require parents to be alerted 30 days before teaching any LGBTQ-inclusive classes. It would also allow parents or guardians to remove students “from a sexual orientation or gender identity curriculum.”
Families would be allowed to opt their kid out without any penalties.
Proponents of the bill say that it will strengthen parental rights, while critics say that the measure would further stigmatize LGBTQ students.
“This bill would make it harder for kids to access sex ed,” the Human Rights Campaign tweeted Wednesday afternoon. “This isn’t just bad for LGBTQ kids, it’s bad for everyone.”
Last week, some religious leaders in the state urged lawmakers to stop passing anti-LGBTQ bills, after the bill advanced in the Senate.
Pastor Brandon Berg, of First United Methodist Church in Bristol, said that the legislation “would stigmatize and do harm to students by treating gender and sexual identity conversations as purely academic exercise that parents can or should morally oppose.”
Rev. Dawn Bennett, a pastor at The Table in Nashville, used a passage from the Old Testament to say that “God’s sovereignty makes no mistakes in creation, quite the opposite. Our world, and everyone and everything in it, is remarkably diverse.”
The passage of the bill marks another victory for conservative legislators in the state.
In March, Tennessee became the third state this year to pass legislation restricting the participation of transgender youth in sports, after Mississippi and Arkansas.