Apparently, having all their arguments about recognizing same sex marriages beginning in MA in 2004 destroying families, promoting marriages to children, animals, pets, and inanimate objects being shown to have been exaggerated and baseless claims, the conservative right has decided since it is not being done as a result of same sex marriage, some states need to pass laws to kick start what they had imagined would happen hasn’t.

Just as when their claims that allowing Transgender people using the restroom that match their correct gender would result in all sorts of sexual predation in ladies’ restrooms, some male conservative and Christian warriors dressed as women and entered the restrooms causing a disturbance.

It wasn’t happening until these people played their games.

They’re like an anti-graffiti brigade who, having no existing examples to explain the importance of their work spray paint the Mona Lisa to show how bad it is and why the brigade is needed.

When Same-Sex Marriage was recognized as legal, for some odd reason the prediction was that Gay people would be having relationships with children, and non-Gay people would see these marriages as permission for them to go after children too.

Since, other than in a case of rape, Gay sex, just like straight sex, is between consenting adults, yes, there is the occasional perv, but that is not determined by sexual orientation, politics, or religious affiliation, this assault on children did not take place.

But it has to the religious and conservative right demand.

There was also the claim that Same-Sex Marriage would dissolve the institution of marriage even as since 2004 and nationally since 2015, not only are Gay people getting married, but heterosexuals are still getting married.

And, so, in Tennessee they codified these attacks on children and marriage with the proposed HB 233.

Domestic partnerships were not seen to be on the same level of marriage to Gay people who wanted their relationships to be seen as more than shacking up or a perpetual roommate arrangement.

While the justification for banning either arrangement when it came to relationship recognition was that unwed couples living together was Biblically wrong and there were laws against it, this bill would establish a common-law marriage between “one man” and “one woman”.

Common law marriages, also known as non-ceremonial marriage, informal marriage, or marriage by habit and repute (living together in an agreed upon long term relationship),and is an informal arrangement without registering with the government or a church.

Not so recognized, such marriages do not get the rights, privileges, and government or corporate benefits, just as long term, same sex relationships were denied, and their domestic partnerships seen as living in sin and detestable

Apparently two Gay people doing this is still illegal and considered wrong.

Only straight people can “live in sin” and get the same benefits as married people.

During the marriage debate the claim was often made that Gay people, in spite of many examples of decades long couplings, were incapable of committed relationships by the same people who would fire a person found in a long term committed Gay relationship, arrest the couple for violating lewdness laws, and prevented these relationships.

Gay people were not incapable of long term, committed relationships. They were being denied the opportunity to have them and then blamed because of the lack of them.

Bill sponsors want to add a new marriage option for residents and will keep those who object to same sex marriages, like churches, happy by establishing an alternative form of marriage.

According to one sponsor,

“So, all this bill does is give an alternative form of marriage for those pastors and other individuals who have a conscientious objection to the current pathway to marriage in our law. There is not an explicit age limit.”

Because they are not formal and do not involve ceremony or paperwork related requirements as they are not in a present-day Biblical marriage, although they are in one allowed in the Old Testament, the usual age limits for legal marriages are waived as an adult is not marrying the child, but simply living with them in a sanctioned common law marriage.

With the age limit evaporating, child advocates oppose this. Pedophiles can now legally shack up with their victims.

In 2018, a Tennessee bill was passed that prohibited anyone under the age of 17 from marrying in the state and anyone under 18 from marrying someone who is four or more years older. Judges could still waive the minimum age limit with parental and guardian consent.

This bill applies to formal marriages, not common law ones.

Straight pedophilia is now sanctioned by law because in Tennessee relationships between an adult and a child are now legal in Tennessee because they have established an “alternative form of marriage”.

The public did not demand this. It is the state’s response to Same Sex Marriage.

They are probably pleased that when it comes to the predictions of future modifications of marriage because Gay people are able to wed, the conservatives in Tennessee, and, judging by the GOP states’ practice of attempting to one-up the others by making their restrictive laws the most restrictive, this common law thing will Metastasize among the red states.

They are the parent who at first is reluctant to give their kid a cookie, but when finally deciding to, cautions the kid that because he has that cookie he is going to fall down soon and tripping him as he passes on the way out of the kitchen.

Gay marriage did not promote or create pedophilia, nor did Gay people demand that.

This is the work of the very Christian conservatives who needed to make marriage modification happen.

Because Gay people can get married, Tennessee has made straight pedophilia legal in response.

That is not on Gay people.