Tennessee continues anti-LGBT legal onslaught with 'therapist bill'

Law allows therapists and counselors to reject clients over
‘sincerely held principles’ as advocates decry latest of over
150 such bills proposed across US

Matthew Teague in Fairhope, Alabama
Thursday 28 April 2016 22.25 BST

Following the passage of the so-called “bathroom law” in North Carolina and an anti-LGBT religious liberty law in Mississippi, similar laws have percolated throughout the country.

It’s the largest legal push against LGBT rights in memory, according to Eunice Rho, advocacy and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. She told the Guardian that in 2016 more than 150 such bills have been proposed across the nation, many in the south. “It’s politically driven,” she said. “Politicians are preying on people’s fears of the unfamiliar.”

On Wednesday, Tennessee governor Bill Haslam signed a bill into law that moves the argument in a new direction: it allows therapists and counselors to reject certain clients if the therapy goes against the practitioner’s “sincerely held principles”. It’s being widely interpreted as a loophole allowing therapists to reject gay, lesbian, transgender and other clients.

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The Tennessee law comes on the heels of a law passed by the city council in Oxford, Alabama, that goes further than the North Carolina law in the patrolling of bathrooms. It calls for penalties for anyone found using a bathroom not in line with his or her biological sex: “Any person violating any provision of this Ordinance as enumerated herein shall be deemed as a separate offense for each such act and upon conviction, shall be punished by fine not to exceed Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00) or incarceration not to exceed six (6) months.”

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