After weeks of delay, the Tennessee
Senate on Friday approved state Senator Stacey Campfield's “Don't
Say Gay” bill, the AP reported.
Senators approved the bill with a 20-10
vote after agreeing to an amendment offered by Republican Senator
Kerry Roberts, and endorsed by Campfield.
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 bill, however, will have to wait at
least until next year to become law. The House has postponed debate
on the measure until then.
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.