Conservatives Pressure Democratic Tenn. AG to Oppose Marriage Equality.

[William769]

State Attorney General Bob Cooper already is on the hot seat with Tennessee’s Republicans for refusing to join the states’ losing lawsuit against Obamacare. Woe unto Cooper if he won’t use his office to defend traditional marriage against that dreaded homosexual menace.

Conservative Christians are calling for the attorney general to take action on a couple of fronts in their crusade against gays and lesbians.

First, they want him to go to court to nullify Collegedale’s decision to pay health benefits to the same-sex spouses of city employees. The state constitution’s ban on gay marriage forbids cities from adopting policies that recognize same-sex marriage and, according to the Tennessee Family Action Council’s David Fowler, that’s what Collegedale is doing.

As we noted in this week’s Scene, our constitutional amendment reads, in pertinent part:

Any policy or law or judicial interpretation, purporting to define marriage as anything other than the historical institution and legal contract between one man and one woman is contrary to the public policy of this state and shall be void and unenforceable in Tennessee.

http://www.nashvillescene.com/pitw/archives/2013/08/28/attorney-general-cooper-on-hot-seat-over-gay-rights

[theHandpuppet]

1. We are witnessing the Mason-Dixon line being redrawn

Or perhaps we were just kidding ourselves in the belief that the division would one day be but a distant memory. The fundamentalists, neo-confederates and racists in power have dug in their heels in a last ditch effort to preserve or even resurrect their antebellum empire. Anti-union, anti-choice, anti-intellectual, racist... from the institution of new Jim Crow laws, the shutting down of women's health clinics, to the crusade against GLBT rights, many southern states are effectively isolating themselves from the rest of the country. I just don't see this situation getting any better in the near future; if anything, the political climate is reaching a crisis point. I can't envision true equality across the board for GLBT citizens unless it is demanded and enforced by the federal government and that won't happen, I fear, without a violent reaction.