Tennessee Takes Step Toward Letting People Refuse To Marry LGBTQ+ Couples

The Tennessee Senate passed a bill Monday evening that would allow people to refuse to perform a marriage that they don’t personally agree with.

Senate Bill 596 says “a person shall not be required to solemnize a marriage if the person has an objection to solemnizing the marriage based on the person’s conscience or religious beliefs.”

State Rep. Monty Fritts ®, the sponsor of an identical companion bill in the state House , said last year that the bill was created “simply and clearly to protect the rights of the officiate or officiates of wedding ceremonies.”

However, Tennessee law currently does not require anyone to officiate a marriage if they don’t want to.

The Senate bill has been substituted with the identical House bill. It will move on to the House for the next vote.

This is the Republican-controlled legislature’s second attempt to push forward a bill that critics say could have widespread ramifications, including for LGBTQ+ and interracial couples.

“The way it’s worded, you can discriminate against anybody for any reason, which is terrible,” said Eric Patton, a Tennessee-based minister, told Nashville television station WKRN . “The idea that you can discriminate against anybody is just wrong-headed and general Tennessee nonsense.”

Patton told the Nashville outlet that the “vaguely worded” legislation is opening itself up to lawsuits because the state wants “to test the marriage equality law as it stands.”

The Human Rights Campaign and Tennessee Equality Project condemned this bill and the state’s anti-drag bill last year.

Marriage equality has been a federally protected right since 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex marriage was constitutionally protected.

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