Dear [Your Elected Official],

<p>I urge you to vote NO on HB1472 on Wednesday in the Civil Justice Subcommittee. The bill is provocatively titled the “Banning Bostock Act.” The idea of banning a Supreme Court decision ought to give everyone pause.</p> <p><br />It is important to remember that one of the defendants in the case was Clayton County, Georgia, a government entity. The Bostock decision applies to the State of Tennessee and its political subdivisions. </p> <p><br />Justice Neil Gorsuch, appointed by President Trump, wrote for the majority, “An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.”</p> <p><br />Employees deserve workplaces free of discrimination. This bill sets up a clash between state law and a Supreme Court ruling leaving employers in a bind and employees with less protection. It leaves employers with less certainty and it exposes the state to expensive lawsuits.</p> <p><br />Thank you for considering my views.</p> <p> </p>