› Tennessee governor signs law deemed discriminatory by equal-rights advocates,
Bill requires words to be interpreted as having their ‘natural and ordinary meaning’
NASHVILLE — Gov. Bill Haslam signed the controversial “natural meaning” bill into law late Thursday, he told reporters outside Sam Houston Elementary School in Maryville.
The law assigns “natural and ordinary meaning” to terms in state law, and bill author Sen. John Stevens, R-Huntington, said he proposed the measure, in part, to compel courts to side more closely with the dissenting opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark same-sex marriage ruling.
“The reason we did was simple,” Haslam said. “The natural and ordinary definition that is part of that legislation is really what the state Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court has used … for years, actually, for centuries.
“And I’m not certain we’ve plowed any new ground with the legislation that was passed with this. Again, we said all along we were going to defer to the will of the Legislature and they passed it really on a three or four to one margin, so it wasn’t like it was a close vote in the House or the Senate.”
In a news release, Haslam said courts have been using natural and ordinary meaning of words for over a century.
“The language of this bill is for a general definitions section of the Tennessee code, which defines “road” and “sheriff,” among other common terms,” he said. “For at least 150 years, courts including the Tennessee Supreme Court and United States Supreme Court have looked to a word’s natural and ordinary meaning when deciding cases.”
LGBT rights advocates viewed the bill as a pathway to discrimination and an attempt to undermine the 2015 high-court decision.
Tennessee Equality Project Executive Director Chris Sanders told the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee the word “natural” concerns him.
“We know the way ‘natural’ is typically used in respect to our relationships. Our families aren’t natural. So that is a concern and with 95 counties and elected judges serving all of them there’s just huge potential for LGBT folks to get a bad ruling somewhere along the way. So we’re very concerned about that.”