Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, a Republican, said on Tuesday that he will sign into law an adoption bill that opponents say discriminates against LGBT families.

The bill, House Bill 836, cleared the House in April. The GOP-controlled Senate overwhelmingly (20-6) approved the bill on the first day of the 2020 legislative session and sent it to Lee for his signature. One Republican, Senator Steve Dickerson, joined the Senate's five Democrats in voting against the bill.

According to NBC News, Chris Walker, Lee's communication director, said Tuesday evening in a statement that Lee would sign the bill.

House Bill 836 prohibits the state from requiring adoption agencies to place a child in a home that violates “the agency's written religious or moral convictions.”

Other states with similar laws include Virginia, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Alabama, Michigan, Mississippi, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest LGBT rights advocate, criticized the bill as a “license to discriminate” against the LGBT community.

“Lawmakers in Tennessee used some of the first minutes of their legislative session to enshrine discrimination into law,” HRC President Alphonso David said in a statement. “These legislators are disregarding the best interests of kids in the child welfare system to create a ‘license to discriminate’ against qualified, loving prospective parents. This bill does nothing to improve the outcomes for children in care, shrinks the pool of prospective parents and is a blatant attempt to discriminate against LGBTQ Tennesseans. It is shameful that one of the first orders of business in Nashville was to target LGBTQ people. We urge Tennesseans to make their voices heard in opposition to this bill as it heads to the governor’s desk.”