You Won’t Believe What The Tennessee Legislature Wants To Do Now


Being born and raised in Tennessee, I can honestly say that I’ve never been more proud of my home state’s legislature as I was last year in April when they stopped a bill that would make Andrew Jackson’s bible the state book.

Jackson’s name was chosen out of a group of other Tennesseans like Elvis Presley and Davy Crockett to be slapped on the front of the bill to make sure it wasn’t stopped on grounds of it being unconstitutional. Tennessee finally seemed like a place for more rational and respectful people than our previous “heroes” Elvis, the original culture vulture, and the avid duelist, fan of Native American genocide, and all around blood-thirsty crazy person, Andrew Jackson.

Arguments against the bill ranged from Governor Haslam saying the bill wasn’t very “respectful” and Attorney General Slatery saying the bill was unconstitutional. I finally felt proud of my home state being above most of the pettiness that plagues much of the American political system. That was – until I looked deeper into it.

As it turns out, most of the opposition was from Christian members of Tennessee state government saying the bill disrespected their religion and belittled the bible by putting it next to the tulip poplar and “Rocky Top” in the Tennessee blue book. While it’s a perfectly sound reason to be against the bill, I was hoping my state’s government officials would also be taking into account that the bill was also very disrespectful and alienative to the small demographic of Tennessee citizens that are of other faiths than Christianity.

Then I learned that it’s not just this bill that shows favoritism to Christianity. Tennessee has a law that states:

“No person who denies the being of god, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this State.”

In Tennessee, it is illegal for atheists to hold office. The Tennessee constitution is so hypocritical that you only have to go eight articles down from where it states:

“that no preference shall ever be given, by law, to any religious establishment or mode of worship.”

To read that, any atheists thinking of getting into Tennessee politics can go ahead and let that dream die because there is no way Tennessee government will ever let you in.

On top of all this awfulness, Tennessee is now pushing again to make the Holy Bible the state book. Many people who were against it the first time now believe that there is no hope in voting it down. One of the most outspoken against the bill, Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, believes it will have enough votes to pass.


Last year Norris was the leading force in sending the legislature to a committee to be approved before it was voted on. That committee has since ruled the bill constitutional and sent it to the senate to be voted on. As of now, I’m living in the state that has chosen to show Christians favoritism over the rest of their citizens. A state that is proud of the vile people that have called the state home, like Andrew Jackson, and has the Barrett M82 sniper rifle as the state rifle listed in the Tennessee blue book.

I’ve never been more let down by my home state.

 

Featured image posted by Jedidja via CCO public domain license.