Lawsuit wants clarification that a spouse of a pregnant woman, regardless of gender, is a parent

Just a few days after Gov. Bill Haslam signed it into law, four lesbian couples are suing the governor over the "natural and ordinary meaning" legislation that critics have called anti-LGBT.

Supporters of the bill, including the Family Action Council of Tennessee's David Fowler, have said the bill is an attempt to force judges to define marriage as occurring between only a man and a woman. Fowler wrote last week that "tying judges’ hands is what our Founders called the separation of powers."

According to The Tennessean:

Each of the four lesbian couples have conceived a child using a sperm donor, according to their filing. Their case notes that, when a man and woman have a child with donated sperm, the husband is automatically given legal rights to the child. They argue Tennessee's new law does not guarantee them the same rights. ... They say the new law violates equal rights and due process protections entrenched in the U.S. and Tennessee constitutions. “The Petitioners seek the same protection under the law that husbands conceiving with donated sperm are afforded by Tennessee statutes,” their filing reads. The women are asking Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle to issue an order setting precedent that any spouse of a pregnant woman is a legal parent.

In addition to Haslam, the Tennessee Department of Health and its commissioner, John Dreyzehner, are named as defendants. The lawsuit asks the court to hear the case as soon as possible so that if the plaintiffs lose, they "can make arrangements to give birth in a state where their full participation in this democracy as citizens in of the United States and their entitlement to due process and equal protection of the law is protected."

"Everybody involved who tried to pass the bill was warned this was coming, it was not an idle threat. We mean business when it comes to protecting our families," Chris Sanders, the executive director of the Tennessee Equality Project, told NewsChannel5.