TN trans care ban: AG said defending case to SCOTUS, expected to rule soon, was God's will
DALLAS — Potentially days before the U.S. Supreme Court rules in a landmark case on a ban on transgender youth receiving certain medical care, Tennessee's attorney general told a room of Southern Baptists he believes it was God's providence that he argued before the land's highest court.
"I'm in the middle of things that are so much bigger than I have any business being in the middle of. But I'm there for a reason," Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said during a June 10 panel discussion at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas. 'So, I just try to remember it's not about me and that God puts his people where he needs them, where he wants them."
Skrmetti's office is defending Tennessee's ban on gender transition treatments for transgender minors, which a Nashville family with a transgender teenager is challenging. The Supreme Court may decide on the case as early as June 12, and a majority of justices have signaled a friendly disposition toward upholding Tennessee's law that took effect in June 2023.
The June 10 event was organized by the Nashville-based SBC's public policy arm, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Skrmetti and another panelist, Alliance Defending Freedom senior vice president Ryan Bangert, said the case is about science and the degree to which courts can decide public policy. But Skrmetti and Bangert, whose law firm is helping represent Tennessee in U.S. v. Skrmetti, acknowledged faith is another key component of this story and will potentially be a resounding victory for conservative Christians.
More: Meet the Tennessee family behind the US Supreme Court's major transgender health care case
'I would be ready to have good conversations with your congregants, good conversations with your fellow church members about what this case means not just from a legal perspective. But from a broader cultural perspective,' Bangert said at the June 10 panel. 'I would be ready to have that conversation: 'God willing, the law has been upheld. What do we do know?''
Alliance Defending Freedom has been a decisive force in several recent U.S. Supreme Court cases that have reversed precedent in favor of conservative Christian ideals. Examples include Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade, Kennedy v. Bremerton dealing with public prayer on a high school sports field, and 303 Creative v. Elenis about a Christian web designer's refusal to work with same-sex couples.
The Southern Baptist Convention is the nation's largest Protestant denomination. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission stated its opposition to transition treatment for transgender people in resolutions at past SBC annual meetings and has been a vocal proponent of bans in Tennessee and other states. Bangert said at the June 10 panel there are 26 states with bans like Tennessee's and the decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti could affect those other laws.
The ERLC filed an amicus brief in U.S. v. Skrmetti, for which the SBC-affiliated agency hired a Southern Baptist lawyer to carefully and forcefully assert the Southern Baptists' position on the issue.
Skrmetti praised the ERLC's amicus brief during the June 10 panel, saying it provided a theological rationale for Tennessee's law. Skrmetti's office cannot make that theological argument in its defense before the Supreme Court because an establishment clause requires the state to approach the case from a religiously neutral perspective.
Skrmetti, who attends a Church of Christ congregation in Nashville, said at the June 10 panel in his capacity at Tennessee's attorney general that his religion is not a factor in how he approaches the case. But personally, he told the crowd of Southern Baptists in Dallas that the outcome will be meaningful as a person of faith.
'Pray for my team that all of us that if we win, win gracefully in a way that reinforces both shining God's light into the world,' Skrmetti said.
Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at ladams@tennessean.com or on social media @liamsadams.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Skrmetti cites God's will to his role in SCOTUS trans care case at SBC
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