Will Tennessee teachers have to out gay students?

In 2011, Tennessee state Sen. Stacey Campfield (R) earned the ire of gay-rights supporters by authoring and championing a "don't say gay" bill, forbidding teachers to even mention homosexuality to kids from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. The bill passed out of the relevant committees of both the state House and Senate, but expired at the end of the legislative session in 2012. Well, "it's back," says Katie McDonough at Salon. "And it's awful," even worse than the previous version. Why? This time, Campfield added new language in the bill that "would require teachers to tell parents when students are — or might be — gay." Here's the relevant section of the bill:

What is Campfield thinking? Well first, unlike lawmakers in California, who banned the controversial gay "conversion" therapy for minors, says Salon's McDonough, Campfield is apparently a fan of the practice "('counseling' in the bill's nomenclature), in which psychologists and psychiatrists... try to change the recipient's sexual orientation." Many states require teachers to report "any signs of child being abused, depressed, or suicidal" to parents or higher authorities, says Ilana Glazer at The Daily Beast, and Campfield apparently believes that "being gay is so abnormal, it must be reported so that such behavior can be thwarted." Still:

Campfield mostly "seems determined that his name will forever more be synonymous with the term 'gay-bashing,'" says Jackson Baker at the Memphis Flyer. That, and making a name for himself, period. It's hard to escape the fact that this new "don't say gay" bill actually does let you "say 'gay' if you must, but say it out of the hearing of the Regular Kids and in a way that isolates the suspected or known outliers and makes them squirm. Call it Tough Love. Call it The Cure." Luckily, "we will hazard here the prediction that Campfield's newest philippic against the state of gaydom will ultimately meet the fate of his first effort" — death by inaction.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Let's hope so, says Annie-Rose Strasser at ThinkProgress. "Family rejection is a serious risk for LGBT youth," often leading to depression or suicide. And if this legislation does pass, plenty more gay kids will surely "face alienation, if not outright abandonment," and the state will be saddled with an epidemic of marginalized or homeless children.