A Tennessee House committee is expected
on Wednesday to consider state Senator Stacey Campfield's “Don't
Say Gay” bill, the Knoxville
News Sentinel reported.
The House Education Subcommittee is
expected to consider the proposed legislation during its afternoon
meeting.
The proposed legislation would outlaw
the discussion of sexual minorities in Tennessee's public schools
before the ninth grade.
A last-minute amendment offered last
year by Republican Senator Kerry Roberts helped the bill clear the
Senate with a 20-10 vote.
The amendment strikes out language that
limited the discussion of sexual orientation to heterosexuality
before the ninth grade, replacing it with language that limits the
discussion to “natural human reproduction science.”
Campfield said the new language
achieved the same objective.
“There's more than one way to skin a
cat,” he said. “This skins the cat, but doesn't scare them
[legislators] so much.”
Campfield said “natural reproduction”
would stamp out discussions of homosexuality since gay people cannot
reproduce.
The House postponed debate on the
measure during last year's legislative session.
The bill also has a new sponsor in the
House. Rep. Bill Dunn said Tuesday he had handed over the bill to
Rep. Joey Hensley for “strategic reasons.”
Campfield's bill has been widely
parodied in the media. The
Daily Show's
Jon Stewart, the gay
rights group FCKH8 and Star
Trek
alum George Takei have taken swipes at Campfield's proposal.