A town in Tennessee passed new guidelines this summer which effectively banned homosexuality in public, after using definitions of inappropriate sexual behavior introduced in the 1940s that it has now quietly modified.
Murfreesboro City Council's Community Decency Standards, passed in June, claimed to promote public decency, maintain family-friendly environments in public places and protect against harm to minors.
The ordinance specifically referred, twice, to city codes which included homosexuality among the public "sexual conduct" which could be harmful to minors, alongside sexual intercourse and masturbation. One of those codes was written in 1949 addressing "community decency" and the second in 1977 on protecting minors from harm.
Murfreesboro's ordinance said that anyone found violating the codes could face a penalty, including possible criminal proceedings, as the city's police department was granted powers to investigate complaints.
The penalties included barring violators from hosting public events or selling goods and services at public events for two years. If those activities happened in the presence of minors, the sentence rose to five years.
A legal challenge over the holding of a pride event was linked to this ordinance, as well as bans on LGBTQ+ books.
However, on November 2 the city voted through a modification to the city codes: removing the word "homosexuality" from the definition of inappropriate sexual conduct.
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According to the meeting's agenda, the latter code "appears to have copied" the definition from 1949 and notes that it was an outdated term unenforceable by law today.
"There is no recollection of the above code sections ever having being enforced with respect to the term excised by the proposed ordinance," the document added.
Book bans still enacted under new rules
Despite this apparent error, the ordinance passed in June has been implemented in some places.
In August, the Rutherford County Library Board ordered four books to be pulled from its young adult bookshelves, all of them seen as LGBTQ+ literature.
- "Flamer" by Mike Curato
- "Let's Talk About It" by Erika Moen
- "Queerfully & Wonderfully Made" edited by Leigh Finke
- "This Book is Gay" by Juno Dawson
At a meeting on November 6, four days after the city codes were modified, the effort to ban similar books expanded when the Rutherford County Steering Committee met to discuss a resolution that would pull all books seen as inappropriate under these guidelines.
The motion also stated that taxpayers' money would not be used to fund the purchase of such materials, either.
Additional speakers not on the agenda are usually not permitted, but local campaigner Keri Lambert sat through the discussion with her hand up, eventually prompting the chairman to allow her to speak for three minutes.
"I think there are two main points that have been left out of this entire discussion," she said. "I don't know if that's because you all know and you don't want to talk about it, you don't want the public to know, I don't know why."
Lambert said the committee had been referring to the Murfreesboro ordinance and questioned why the board was following a document already being challenged in the courts.
She called out those in the meeting talking fondly of going to the library growing up, to learn about history or read other non-fiction. Under proposals set to take effect next year, minors would not be allowed to access non-fiction books because of a tiered system of library cards.
"When, in the history of the world, have the people banning books been the good guys?" she asked the meeting, with the chairman seen laughing after she sat down.
Legal challenges underway
The ordinance saw one successful legal challenge from the organizers of a local LGBTQ+ pride event, who said city officials had carried out a year-long campaign to limit free speech and expression.
The BoroPride festival weekend was allowed to go ahead in October, after a judge granted a two day suspension of the rules.
"LGBTQ+ people should not have to live in fear of being targeted by their local elected officials and we will continue to protect this space and the free speech rights of Murfreesboro residents until this ordinance is struck down for good," American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, ACLU, Ballard Spahr, and Burr Forman said in a statement at the time.
The city's modification of its codes came around two weeks after this ruling.
The Messenger approached the ACLU of Tennessee for further comment, but did not receive a response.
While the city did provide clarification to The Messenger on the changes made November 2, its spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions as to why the change had been made now, rather than before the ordinance was enacted in June.
The United States is seeing a wave of legislation at the local and state level affecting LGBTQ+ people, much of it slated as a way to protect children. Book bans, intended to remove "explicit" material, are seen as a major part of that.
In Tennessee, a statewide drag ban was declared unconstitutional and that declaration was used to argue that another pride event could go ahead in September.