Conservatives in Tennessee praised a Texas judge’s decision Monday to block the Obama administration’s controversial directive that requires public schools to allow transgender students to use the restroom of their chosen gender identify.
“I applaud the court’s decision to temporarily block this heavy-handed and politically motivated directive that had no right to be forced upon our schools in the first place,” U.S. Rep. Diane Black said in a statement issued shortly after news broke that U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor called for a temporary injunction of the directive.
The directive, introduced in May, was widely blasted by Southern conservatives, including Black, R-Tenn., who said the administration’s order was tantamount to extortion.
Tennessee was one of the 13 states, including Texas, Georgia and Alabama, that challenged the directive.
“I have long said that a federal government so big and so powerful that it has extended its reach all the way to the school bathroom stall is a government that has lost its way,” Black said. “Tennesseans know that our educators and school administrators are better equipped than any DC bureaucrat to care for the unique needs of their student population, and I am pleased that our state is among those challenging this senseless decree.”
Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, said, he was grateful the “forces of common sense prevailed over the forces of political correctness.”
“A federal judge has told us what common sense told us months ago: Obama’s directive was an unlawful, unconstitutional federal intrusion,” he said. “We simply cannot place the tyrannical whims of an infinitesimal minority above the legitimate needs of the overwhelming majority.”
Kara Owen, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, said, “Tennessee joined this case as a result of the federal government’s overreach into state and local affairs, and the Speaker is pleased with the federal court’s decision to issue an injunction while further review takes place.”
When Tennessee joined the lawsuit, Attorney General Herbert Slatery called the directive a (continue reading)