STATE LAW AND GENDER-BASED ROLES

Many of Tennessee’s laws on marriage and parenting have not been formally updated through legislation since the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision.

House Bill 33, sponsored by Rep. John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge, and Sen. Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma, would update state law to assign gender-based definitions to the terms “mother,” “father,” “husband” and “wife” to be “based on biological distinctions.”

Bowling and Ragan defended the legislation, saying it merely codified judicial opinions delivered in the publicized samesex divorce and custody case in Knoxville between Sabrina and Erica Witt, who fought in court over the custody of their child.

“Rights are something that God gives you; the law can’t give you that,” Bowling said. “What this does is clearly define words. We are a nation of laws. Laws are made up of words, and words have clear understanding — clear meaning.”

The judge in that case ruled custody claims could not be awarded to Erica Witt because she did not birth the child and state law had not been updated after the Supreme Court’s decision, which did not address custody. But the Tennessee attorney general issued a different opinion.

“The legislature’s use of the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ merely reflects the fact that only opposite-sex marriages were recognized in Tennessee when the statute was enacted in 1977,” Herbert Slatery wrote in October.

That changed after the Supreme Court decision, Slatery wrote. “In order to preserve the constitutionality of [state law], therefore, it must now be construed to read: ‘A child born to a married woman as a result of artificial insemination, with consent of the married woman’s spouse, is deemed to be the legitimate child of the two spouses.’”

Slatery’s opinion has been used as an argument by Weaver and others as justification for their legislation.

Fowler said Slatery’s opinion was “shocking” and a great step beyond his bounds.

“Not only is he rewriting the statute, he’s rewriting the statute against the child of two men because neither of them are inseminated,” Fowler said.