This article originally appeared on Truthout.
Republican lawmakers in the Tennessee state legislature have advanced a bill to the governor which, if signed into law, would give public officials the ability to deny marriages to LGBTQ or interracial couples.
The bill would invariably be challenged by LGBTQ groups as unconstitutional, in violation of standards that were enacted through Supreme Court rulings like Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage throughout the entire country, and Loving v. Virginia, which forbids state laws barring interracial marriages.
The bill is sponsored by state Sen. Mark Pody, R, and state Rep. Monty Fritts, R,. Fritts has asserted that any opposition to the bill being anti-LGBTQ is misplaced because the bill doesn’t mention such marriages at all, dubiously claiming that the bill merely exists to clarify “the rights of the officiate or officiates of wedding ceremonies” to refuse to perform marriage ceremonies based on religious convictions, rights that already exist within the state and that aren’t being questioned or challenged.