Although Knoxville representative Stacey Campfield’s infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill has been killed several times in past legislative sessions, it somehow managed to pass the Senate this morning in a 19 to 11 vote.
The bill originally prohibited the teaching of or furnishing of materials on human sexuality other than heterosexuality in public school grades K-8. An amended version passed, which rewrote the bill to require that any instruction or materials made available or provided at or to a public elementary or middle school must be limited exclusively to natural human reproduction science.
Thankfully, when the bill was in the House, an education subcommittee declined to take it up, so it’s still essentially dead for awhile. Nothing further can happen with the bill until the next session in January 2012.
When the bill was first introduced in 2008, here’s what Campfield told the Flyer: “I think the schools should stick to the basics: reading, writing, and arithmetic. And maybe some civics. But teaching transgenderism to middle school students … I don’t think that’s the road we should go down. I think that’s what parents should be doing.”
If the bill does eventually become law one day, Star Trek cast member/openly-gay actor George Takai has the solution:
