Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam
Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III has warned lawmakers in his state that they risk losing billions of dollars in federal funding if they move ahead with legislation restricting transgender students ‘ access to appropriate bathroom facilities. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has already warned that the state could lose about $3 billion in federal dollars over the proposed legislation.
But while everybody’s attention was focused on the possibility of an anti-trans bathroom bill, lawmakers went ahead and passed legislation allowing counselors and therapists to deny services to LGBT people based on the mental health professionals’ “sincerely-held principals,” according to the Times Free Press.
State Sen. Jack Johnson, who sponsored this piece of shit bill, said it would be the same as allowing a lawyer to refuse to write a will for a client charged with first-degree murder.
The American Counseling Association as well as a large number of individual counselors and therapists have come out strongly against Jackson’s bill, saying that allowing their own personal beliefs to interfere with helping a patient in need goes against everything they are trained to do.
And by the way, Tennessee lawmakers also recently approved a bill designating the Holy Bible as the official book of their state. That legislation is also awaiting action by Gov. Haslam.
