Tennessee Legislature Allows Two Anti-Gay Education Bills To Die

Tennessee has been a toxic place on issues of sex and gender recently, with the University of Tennessee recently caving to Fox News’ complaints and cutting funding for students’ “Sex Week” programming. This week there was some good news, however, because two anti-gay pieces of legislation died in committee.

The first was the odious “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which was originally designed to censor school officials and teachers from discussing homosexuality in grades K-8. Versions introduced this year included requirements that school counselors out LGBT students to their families or prevent counselors from providing mental health services whatsoever. The bill did not receive a second when it was moved in the House Education Subcommittee and subsequently died. State Rep. John Ragan (R), who sponsored the bill because “it was about school safety,” has promised to reintroduce it next year.

Another bill targeted institutions of higher education, threatening to cut support for campus police if universities required student groups to abide by “all-comers” nondiscrimination policies. The intention behind such measures, like one recently passed in Virginia, is to allow Christian groups to discriminate against gay students. Tennessee Attorney General Robert Cooper (D) called the bill unconstitutional and Gov. Bill Haslam (R) said he saw no reason to have the bill considered. Last year, he vetoed a similar bill targeting university nondiscrimination statements. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Mark Pody (R), took the bill “off notice,” killing it, but his apparent vendetta against Vanderbilt University’s “all-comers” policy suggests this isn’t the last of his efforts.

The death of these two bills is a nice reprieve for Tennessee’s LGBT community, but it seems neither of these fights is permanently over.

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Vermont Legislature Debates Controversial ‘Right To Die’ Bill

The Vermont Senate’s Health and Welfare Committee has taken up a controversial measure that would “allow physicians to prescribe lethal doses [of medication] to those with less than six months to live who request the option.” If the bill were to pass, it would make Vermont only the third state after Oregon and Washington to legalize a so-called “right to die” measure.

The bill has aroused significant passions in both supporters and detractors, with each side claiming that their views represent a more humanitarian approach to public health issues for the terminally ill:

Earlier Tuesday, [the committee] heard from former Gov. Madeleine Kunin, who described watching her brother, former state Sen. Edgar May, die last month.

“He told me, ‘I want to die.’ We were all shocked,” Kunin said, as she addressed committee. “He didn’t want to live an incapacitated life.” [...]

Kunin said her brother didn’t need a lethal dose of medication, as the bill allows. Instead, having suffered from a series of strokes, he voluntarily withdrew his medications and had his feeding tube removed. His doctors and family went along with his wishes, she said. [...]

Edward Mahoney, president of the Vermont Alliance for Ethical Health Care, was in the audience listening as Kunin testified. An opponent of the bill who is also scheduled to address the committee this week, Mahoney said her story was compelling but also shows why such a law is not needed. Her brother’s doctors followed his wishes and made him comfortable, Mahoney said.

Kunin disagreed. “I wouldn’t say we don’t need the law. This was a unique situation,” she said, whereas someone else might be in more pain. “We have to respect the wishes of the dying person.”

The bill is expected to receive a full vote in the Vermont state Senate, and the outcome is likely to be close and unpredictable, as the issue has cut across party lines and regular partisan polarization.

Oregon and Washington’s physician-assisted suicide laws have shown that a very low percentage of the terminally ill actually request or utilize them. That lends some credence to the argument that only Americans in dire need of such procedures would pursue them, and that a lack of access to these provisions encourages self-inflected harm and suicide, which might increase the suffering of the terminally ill.

Still, others argue that “right to die” legislation embodies a race to the bottom. Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly voted down a similar law in the most recent election cycle.

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