MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT) -- WMOT is again this year asking news makers from across the political spectrum to comment on the recently concluded 108th Tennessee General Assembly.
Today we hear from Hedy Weinberg, Director of the Tennessee Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Weinberg says the session highlights a legislature that she sees as increasingly “partisan and polarized.”
She says her organization was especially disappointed in a bill, since signed by Governor Haslam, which criminalizes the act of giving birth to a drug addicted baby.
Weinberg says that ACLU was also disappointed in a bill that purportedly protects the religious freedoms of Tennessee school children, but that she believes actually does just the opposite.
“They are diluting and jeopardizing religious freedom for all. So it’s going to create, we believe, chaos and confusion in the public schools. All of us want to support and ensure religious freedom for all religious groups, both in the majority and the minority.”
Weinberg says the ACLU was pleased to have the chance this session to work with legislators on both sides of the political aisle to require police in most cases to secure a warrant before conducting a search of a person’s cell phone.
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