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Two state lawmakers are trying to set up another court fight over same-sex marriage.
Lebanon Representative MarkPodyand Mt. Juliet Senator Mae Beavers are proposing a measure that would once again define marriage in Tennessee as being between a man and a woman.
The bill, known as the Natural Marriage Defense Act, is essentially two ideas in one: It would make the state pay the legal bills of any county clerk who refuses to issue a same-sex couple a marriage license. And it would reassert that only opposite-sex marriages are legal in Tennessee.
If the measure, HB 1412, passes the legislature next year, lawmakers will press Tennessee's attorney general to defend it in court.
The goal is to start another round of litigation over marriage, says Pody.
"We know it's going to be challenged. We understand all the legal things that have happened," Pody says. "The choice that we had was to say nothing, that we're just going to accept it, or that we're going to fight it."
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