NASHVILLE, Tennessee (LifeSiteNews) — The Tennessee House of Representatives passed legislation on Thursday that would allow private citizens and organizations to refuse to recognize homosexual “marriages,” in a major challenge to the LGBT movement.
House Bill 1473, which cleared the state House 68-24 with overwhelming support from Republicans, would exempt banks, medical institutions, and other private entities from recognizing what the bill refers to as “a purported marriage between individuals of the same sex.”
The bill additionally states that government officials may not face discipline or sanctions for “declining to celebrate or officiate at a marriage or commitment ceremony that falls outside the definition of marriage provided in this code.”
The legislation pushes back against Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court decision that legalized homosexual “marriage” nationwide.
“Private citizens and organizations are not bound by the Fourteenth Amendment or by the Supreme Court’s purported interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in Obergefell v. Hodges,” House Bill 1473 says.
All Republicans in the Tennessee House voted for the measure, while all Democrats voted against it.
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