Tennessee has gone one better on a trend toward protecting custodial and visitation rights of parents deployed in the military.

Under a brand new law, a parent deployed for at least ninety days can assign his or her visitation rights to a relative, subject to the court’s authority to veto the surrogate’s visitation if it is not in the child’s best interests.

This is an interesting expansion of the widespread view that visitation is a fundamental personal privilege of a parent.

But for now, deployed parents can presumably transfer their visitation rights to, say, stepparents who are their new spouses.

Legal challenges will likely follow in short order.

Read more in this [Chattanooga, TN] WRCB 3 Eyewitness News TV article: Military visitation rights bill signed by governor.