Tennessee State Senator Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville), long a personal friend of this writer, has gotten a lot of personal attention this week over his legislation that would limit sexual discussion in Tennessee's elementary school classrooms, as  (specifically Grades K-8). Much of the national media has labeled the bill the "Don't Say Gay Bill." Campfield has, in this week alone, found himself going toe-to-toe with Fox News' resident liberal Alan Colmes on Colmes' radio program, had a midday segment on CNN, and enjoyed a column on the blog for the The Hill. Senator Campfield also received coverage from Fox News itself, the network which has, in fairness, become the conservative standby. A story on Campfield is even to be found in the London Daily Mail.

 

 

Stacey Campfield's detractors often say that Campfield will do anything for attention, and that the legislation he champions is only of the sort that will grab media attention. What many of those same people refuse to admit (though they know it to be true) is that Campfield does not seek out the attention he receives, but he gets that attention because the bills he introduces most often reflect the conservative agenda. Stacey Campfield was first elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 2004 as both a fiscal and a social conservative, and unabashedly so. What Campfield told his constituents that he believed when he was first elected are the very things that he has continued to champion while in office. Campfield promised an agenda that was fiscally responsible and socially conservative, and has said that he would champion the pro-life cause, home schools and educational choice for parents, and a more conservative social atmosphere.

 

 

Most of Stacey Campfield's positions either directly reflect a promise that he's made while campaigning for election or re-election, or they mirror the positions of American conservatism as it has evolved in the last 50 years. The press expresses utter shock that a professing conservative would introduce legislation that advances an agenda that is conservative-perish the thought!