Don't Say "Tennessee"

By Zamboni

The Tennessee Senate passed a bill today that would block schoolchildren in that state from discussing homosexuality or even acknowledging that it exists.

Needless to say, the Republican-sponsored "Don't Say Gay" bill is appalling and ridiculous. It will be interesting to see if the Tennessee General Assembly approves it next year.

In the meantime, while we love, love, love "Star Trek" alumnus George Takei's answer to this hate bill — just substitute his last name for the hated "g" word — allow us cats to, um, "volunteer" an alternate solution: If this execrable bill becomes law, we propose that no schoolchildren in the remaining 49 states be taught that Tennessee exists.

That's right: Wipe Tennessee off the books. Skip Andrew Johnson in the list of the Presidents. (That actually might be a good thing.) Shift all those Civil War battles elsewhere. Forget about the Grand Ole Opry. "Elvis" who? Oh, and let's change the name of the TVA.

We cats realize this is drastic and possibly silly — but not nearly as silly as what the Tennessee Senate did today. (And our apologies to President Gore. But you know, Al, your home state didn't vote for you in 2000 anyway.)

UPDATE: Now, here's a poser: What would high school English teachers in the Volunteer State do about Tennessee Williams? He'd be quite a double whammy: a homosexual playwright with that dreaded first name. But as we cats would be loath to remove Blanche DuBois & Company from any classroom, we'd insist that students read Williams. But only refer to him as Thomas Lanier.