The state Senate began its final day of the legislative session Thursday with lawmakers revisiting two major issues of the session, religious liberty and cityhood.
A vote on religious-liberty legislation, Senate Bill 129, may not happen before the end of the session at midnight, but the furor over the issue is far from dead.
Bill sponsor Sen. Josh McKoon took time Thursday morning to address the corporations that he said weighed in against the protections of free-enterprise rights in Georgia — and took a shot at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Coca-Cola and other local companies petitioned lawmakers not to approve the legislation, which become a lightning rod here and in other states.
“When those corporations stop doing business with ayatollahs, stop doing business in places where homosexuality is a crime, then I’ll be interested in their opinion,” McKoon, R-Columbus, said.
McKoon decried the toxic nature of the debate surrounding the bill, saying things have “gone off the rails,” including, he said, a cartoon in the AJC that compared people who support religious-freedom legislation to the Ku Klux Klan.
“I think it is important on this debate and others that we have a civil dialogue and talk about the policy and contest that as vigorously as we must, but try not to assignate the character of anyone,” he said.
Sen. Donzella James also captured much of the Senate attention Thursday morning, telling her colleagues she planned to try to revive a bill that would allow establishment of a city of South Fulton.
A large crowd of residents from that area, decked out in red, were seated in the Senate gallery, and gave James, D-Atlanta, a standing ovation.
“If people who are hardworking took off their jobs to come here today in large numbers, that means this is very important to them, their futures, their children and their community,” she said.
The Senate tabled the bill earlier this week.
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