SB2840 specifies that a court may order “reasonable visitation” to grandparents when it is in the “best interests of the child” if such visitation is opposed by the child’s custodial parent(s).
The Senate passed SB2840 on March 18, 2024, by a vote of 32 to 0. We have assigned pluses to the noes because final decision-making authority over the upbringing and care of a child belongs to the child’s parents—not their grandparents, the government, or anyone else. No law-abiding custodial parent should ever be compelled to relinquish their child under threat of the full weight and force of the judicial system. Opponents of traditional marriage and the family are also working tirelessly in each of the several States to proceed beyond “no-fault divorce” by advocating for “equal-shared parenting” and similar “best interests of the child” legislation that seeks to rewrite U.S. family law entirely, being modeled after the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. If these efforts are not defeated, they will have severe long-lasting consequences for parental rights in America. Tennessee officials must stand firm against this intrusion. Parental rights, as with all other fundamental rights, are protected by the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment. Article VI, Section 2, of the Constitution notably requires that “Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”