Georgia looking to pass its own legal discrimination bill

A bill moving swiftly through the Georgia House of Representatives would allow business owners who believe homosexuality is a sin to openly discriminate against gay Americans by denying them employment or banning them from restaurants and hotels.

The proposal, dubbed the Preservation of Religious Freedom Act, would allow any individual or for-profit company to ignore Georgia laws—including anti-discrimination and civil rights laws—that "indirectly constrain" exercise of religion. Atlanta, for example, prohibits discrimination against LGBT residents seeking housing, employment, and public accommodations. But the state bill could trump Atlanta's protections.

The Georgia bill, which was introduced last week and was scheduled to be heard in subcommittee Monday afternoon, was sponsored by six state representatives (some of them Democrats). A similar bill has been introduced in the state Senate.

The Georgia House bill's text is largely identical to controversial legislation that passed in Arizona last week. The Arizona measure—which is currently awaiting Republican Gov. Jan Brewer's signature—has drawn widespread protests from LGBT groups and local businesses. One lawmaker who voted for the Arizona bill, Sen. Steve Pierce (R-Prescott), went so far as to publicly change his mind.

Georgia and Arizona are only the latest states to push religious freedom bills that could nullify discrimination laws. The new legislation is part of a wave of state laws drafted in response to a New Mexico lawsuit in which a photographer was sued for refusing to work for a same-sex couple.

Unlike similar bills introduced in Kansas, Tennessee, and South Dakota, the Georgia and Arizona bills do not explicitly target same-sex couples. But that difference could make the impact of the Georgia and Arizona bills even broader. Legal experts, including Eunice Rho, advocacy and policy counsel for the ACLU, warn that Georgia and Arizona's religious-freedom bills are so sweeping that they open the door for discrimination against not only gay people, but other groups as well. The New Republic noted that under the Arizona bill, "a restaurateur could deny service to an out-of-wedlock mother, a cop could refuse to intervene in a domestic dispute if his religion allows for husbands beating their wives, and a hotel chain could refuse to rent rooms to Jews, Hindus, or Muslims."

"The government should not allow individuals or corporations to use religion as an excuse to discriminate [or] to deny other access to basic healthcare and safety precautions," Maggie Garrett, legislative director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, wrote in a letter to a Georgia House Judiciary subcommittee on Sunday.

State representative Sam Teasley, the first sponsor listed on the bill, did not respond to request for comment Monday.

"The bill was filed and is being pushed solely because that's what all the cool conservative kids are doing, and because it sends a message of defiance to those who believe that gay Americans ought to be treated the same as everybody else," writes Jay Bookman, a columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Passing it would seriously stain the reputation of Georgia and the Georgia Legislature."

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/02/new-bill-georgia-would-allow-businesses-kick-gay-people-out-diners

Well, at least they are not beating around the bush anymore with their bigotry. Going to be so funny when these bills cause the Supreme Court to comment and make gays a protected class.

...Wow

I'm amazed that ideas like this make it so far up the government chain....

It's not bigotry to support traditional marriage which is what this bill is clearly all about.

This can't pass because it's unconstitutional. Federal law trumps state law. Having said that, the bill is ridiculous.

I really wish these legislators in the south would get a clue. They are embarrassing us all down here. I'm living in Georgia, and I couldn't possibly be more ashamed of how backwards and ignorant our state, and our region as a whole, actually is.

I'm guessing you watched the Anderson Cooper interview from last night, too?

Agreed. I also live in Georgia, and love it here... but it really is embarrassing to see so many people here putting a halt to our societies advances.

Just wondering but who votes these kind of people in? Surely the populations of Atlanta and Savannah are enough to reel in the crazies?

The conservative religious voting block is still bigger, and that's who votes these morons in. I really wish Christians, not just in Georgia but the whole of the USA, would realize how badly they are being manipulated. The behavior of elected Republicans, at both the state and federal level, is not Christ-like at all. These people are not Christians.

Jesus would totally be down w/ discrimination.

I always like to ask my Christian friends and family, when we discuss the matter of gay rights and their attempts to legislate their religious beliefs into the law…

"The Old Testament says to kill homosexuals, should we do that?"

They say no, and cite the trendy "We live under grace (Jesus, NT) now, not law (Yahweh, OT)".

Then I ask to provide justification for preventing gays from having equal rights, and they cite OT verses. So I always point that they are cherry picking. When Yahweh says to kill gays, it's not ok and we live under grace. When Yahweh simply says to hate gays, it's given an exception and used to fuel these efforts. (they also ignore his orders in the same book to not eat shellfish and wear mixed fiber clothing)

Because here is what Jesus said on homosexuality in general.

"………"

I live in Columbus GA. (Third largest city) and it's overwhelming how many people are like this.

Isn't that constitutionally illegal?

I have the grave misfortune of residing in Albany. :(

Well good for them. I am tired of seeing people's religious beliefs being trampled everyday.

What about the civil rights for gays?

Nothing says religious freedom like discrimination!

I feel like there needs to be anti-Christian protests at this point. Would be cathartic to get to yell my lungs out at these ass-backwards morons. Really sick of these people existing.....

They have the right to look for work elsewhere and shop elsewhere.

@AmazonTreeBoa, If I owned a store, would it be acceptable for me to deny service to any person who was a member of any religion?

For this hypothetical, theism in general go against my "religious" beliefs.

What religious rights are being trampled on. As far as I know it's illegal to not serve someone due to their religion.

Sorry, not getting in this with you. I am happy about this. Suck it up and deal with it. I could throw a stupid hypothetical question at you as well. I just don't care to. Religious people get trampled on all the time, so you have it all wrong if you think I give two shits about it happening to somebody else for a change. No I am not a religious person, but that doesn't mean I like to see religious people treated like shit all the time and their beliefs ignored in favor of somebody elses.

And what has this bill got to do with religious people being trampled on? It in no way protects anyone's beliefs, all it does is discriminate.

I don't know how this is any different than the segregation of blacks and whites. These laws will (had better) not get past the Supreme Court...

Religious people have no right to have their beliefs put in law. How is this any different than the Jim Crow laws? Your religious rights do not extend past the privacy of your home or church.

You're talking about a country where a politician claiming to be atheist would be basically committing career suicide.

conservatives are tired of just fucking gay people at interstate rest areas and in public restrooms and want make fucking them required by state law.

Classic! Reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw during the Clinton years: Republicans screw the country, Democrats just screw.

I'm not surprised by this. The bigoted right wing legions are panicking, now that equality in marriage is supported by the majority in the country. They think they will feel more comfortable if they can discriminate legally, but once you codify such beliefs, the backlash only increases.

It isn't just gay people who will refuse to go to XXXXX state because of these discrimination laws, lot of people and businesses will refuse to go to those states out of principle. This is already bad publicity of Arizona, just as it will be for Georgia and any other state that considers this.

This isn't the state legislature considering a discrimination law, they laws are passing, so politicians are permanently on record voting in favor. That can easily be used against them.

Embarrassing

Land of the free everybody!

I'd be okay with laws like these if they were just limited to weddings. Unfortunately, they're not. They're too broad and are therefore unconstitutional.

Yes it is.

I don't give a **** whether you are pro-gay or not .... to "allow business owners who believe homosexuality is a sin to openly discriminate against gay Americans by denying them employment or banning them from restaurants and hotels.".... is just wrong. period. The people who signed this shit should resign immediately.

I grew up in a town smaller than both of those, and it was really bad. The problem is that those people DO get a vote (and they should, as bigoted as they can be), and they're all so brainwashed by Fox News that they truly believe all that crap about there being a war on religion, and that just makes them even more vocal with their bigotry. I live in northern Atlanta now, and it's a whole different world, but that doesn't exactly cancel out all the rural areas. And people tend to forget that minorities are generally socially CONSERVATIVE even though they vote democrat (see where the article says that some of the supporters of the bill are dems? there you go..), so you're basically throwing all of them onto the rural vote, and that's why we get bills like this.

Religious people need to understand that not always getting your way =/= being trampled on or oppressed. These guys can't claim that they are being "trampled on" while simultaneously copying their religion directly from the bible, and into the law we all must obey. I don't remember any laws saying Christians can't get married, or that a business can deny service to a Christian if it violates their religious beliefs. Which is something these laws would make possible actually, it could also reintroduce legal skin color discrimination.

That is something these religious conservatives never take into consideration, precedent. It's an important thing to think about it. If someone cannot practice their religion without discriminating against and oppressing others, then their religion is not compatible with a first world society.

Painfully aware of that, sadly. It's how the gay marriage ban was passed in NC. It's honestly sad and confusing to see african americans going out in droves to vote to take away/restrict the civil rights of another minority. It's even more sickening and sad that they suddenly think it's ok for a minority groups civil rights to be determined via a popular vote. (it is absolutely against everything this country stands for as a democratic republic) Where would they be here in the south if THEIR civil rights had been up for a popular vote instead of mandated by the federal government??

One of the most important functions of the federal government in a democratic republic is to protect the rights of a minority from the whims and tyranny of a majority. Ours has not been doing a good job of this for the LBGTQ community.

Shocking just how quickly the oppressed can become the oppressor, and they even use the exact same book their own oppressors used to justify it. Hell, you could take the speech of a white segregationist and just replace the racial slurs against blacks in that speech with popular slurs for homosexuals, and you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two when an angry black preacher is screaming it out at a rally while thumping his bible.

@Randolph: Yep, exactly. It's really senseless and frustrating.

I grew up in Sylvester myself, Peanut Capital of the World. One of the last vestiges of small town America around here, and it's about get a freaking Wal-Mart. Ugh.

These laws will be struck down by the federal courts, but it's a processes and won't happen overnight.

I was about two and a half hours east, in Wayne County. They got a Wal-Mart about a year or two before I moved there as a kid. It was the hangout place of the whole town, I kid you not.

There are legitimate protections to religious freedom that need to be in place, but blanket power to discriminate is not one of them.

The Piggly Wiggly in the center of town was ours. It became a Harveys, (I'm an Assistant Store Manager with them now actually) then a Piggly Wiggly again when the Food Lion became the new Harveys, and then a Piggly Wiggly again. It's already well known that it will be shutting down, it could barely keep up with the Harveys as is, and the Wal-Mart will be right down the road from it.

Oh jeez... religious fundamentalist douchebags are at it again, this is why we can't have nice things.

I've seen a few people try to compare this to Jim Crow laws. It's a tasteless comparison to make and not a valid one at all. No different from when people draw political comparisons to Nazis.

@Aljosa23:

I can't say I tune in to Anderson Cooper. Was it worth watching? If so do you have a link?

Oh, my friend. The guy he debated is now widely considered to be America's dumbest politician.

That's a field populated by Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and George Bush. The bar is set pretty damn high.

So how is it different?