As students went sledding and made snowmen Tuesday evening, legislators in Nashville were deciding the fate of gay marriage in Tennessee.
The Natural Marriage Defense Act, which would have directed state officials to ignore the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage, failed to pass in the legislature Tuesday evening. Despite the failure, some lawmakers remain hopeful that future efforts to undermine the Supreme Court’s June ruling.
Rep. Mark Pody, R-Lebanon, the bill’s main sponsor, believes that while current efforts may have stalled, he and other Republican lawmakers will continue their efforts with a court challenge.
“I believe the committee members were all on board, and (I think) if the court case does not pan out, they would support this bill,” Pody said. “Right now they feel a court challenge would be a better way to go.”
Prior to it’s failure in the legislature, the bill had already gained widespread opposition after a legislature analysis revealed it could cost the state $8.5 billion annually as a result of lost federal funding.
In Pody’s home district of Rutherford County, the Rutherford County Commission passed several resolutions before the vote on Tuesday urging the the General Assembly to obey the constitution rather than the proposed bill.
Gwen Schablik, who works as the Knoxville committee chair for the Tennessee Equality Project, spent the months prior to the vote traveling across Tennessee educating citizens on the Natural Marriage Defense Act.
Polling Tennesseans in rural areas across the state, Schablik found that over 50 percent of self described Republicans and independents were opposed to the bill, reflecting an evident split in the party’s base over the contentious issue of gay marriage.
“In terms of religion, everybody is entitled to their religious beliefs,” Schablik said, who believes the bill reflects an overall exclusion by lawmakers of non-Christian members of their constituency. “What I think they’re doing (the legislators) is basically limiting it to their beliefs, and not recognizing all the other religious beliefs that make up their constituency.”
Speaking on behalf of the conservative group Family Action Council of Tennessee, president David Fowler expressed in a statement his hesitancy to support a bill unable to support its own provisions.
“The legislature is very limited in its ability to enforce the provisions of HB 1412,” said Fowler. “I believe a law that cannot be enforced by the legislature will not accomplish the change its supporters are looking for.”
Yet for Pody, the potential pros surrounding the failed bill outweigh the cons. Pody dismissed the $8.5 billion price tag attached to the bill as “ridiculous,” citing Colorado’s successful attempt to undermine federal law by legalizing marijuana usage in the state. Pody further cites the 2006 Tennessee Marriage protection Ammendment, which he claims gives him proper authority to enforce what he sees as traditional marriage in Tennessee.
“I wanna see that we stand strong in Tennessee, where marriage is strictly between a man and a woman,” Pody said. “I don’t think sexual orientation is a protected right … We’re not infringing on anyone’s rights.”
