Tennessee lawmakers introduce bills that would restrict LGBT rights

Tennessee lawmakers introduced two bills that would restrict the rights of LGBTQIA people on Wednesday.

The first bill, labeled the "Tennessee Natural Marriage Defense Act," says that marriage will be recognized as a union between a man and a woman in the state of Tennessee -- a legislative response to the U.S. Supreme Court's nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015.

The court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges outlawed discrimination against same-sex couples in marriage law. But this bill, which leans on the Ninth and Tenth Amendments in the U.S. Constitution for support, states that the Supreme Court is not the final voice in determining state matters.

See photos of SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage from 2015

The second bill, SB0771, requires public schools to "require that a student use student restroom and locker room facilities that are assigned for use by persons of the same sex as the sex indicated on the student's original birth certificate."

Sen. Mae Beavers (R-Ten.) introduced both bills to the state's legislature last week, along with a version of the SB0771 bill that was introduced by Tennessee representative Mark Pody.

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The nine-page marriage bill consists of reasons the Republican lawmakers believe Tennessee should be able to ignore the Supreme Court's same-sex marriage ruling. It contains lengthy introduction that describes Obergefell v. Hodges as a "lawless" decision and goes as far as to accuse Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan of improper participation in the United States v. Windsor ruling, as both had a history of officiating weddings for couples of the same sex. The Windsor decision struck down a federal law that denied benefits to married same-sex couples.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" was also referenced in the marriage bill as an effort to inspire resistance to laws deemed unjust, drawing comparisons between the Obergefell decision and the 1857 Dred Scott decision, a ruling that denied African Americans the right to sue under the Constitution on account of them not being citizens, whether slave or free.