Lawmakers, LGBT advocates far apart on marriage, parenting bills

If you’re a man living in Tennessee, state law says you can claim paternity by performing what reads like a line from a famous Disney movie about a lion cub.

A man is presumed the father of a child if “while the child is under the age of majority, the man receives the child into the man's home and openly holds the child out as the man's natural child,” a state statute reads.

Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver, R-Lancaster, cited that statute in defending legislation she introduced that would repeal a law that grants legitimacy to children conceived through artificial insemination in married heterosexual couples.

Weaver said repealing the law means "the state will no longer intrude into how a woman conceives her child," while other state rules about marriage and children would remain in effect.

Read more: http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2017/02/20/lawmakers-lgbt-advocates-far-apart-marriage-parenting-bills/98065390/