Last week, the Georgia state Senate voted 38-14 in favor of a bill that turns religion into a shield to excuse anti-gay bigotry, and that allows the use of state tax dollars to carry out such anti-gay bigotry.
And as usual, advocates deny its true intent. “Nothing in the bill will allow a public employee to neglect their responsibilities in service to the public,” state Sen. Greg Kirk wrote in the AJC Sunday. “Nothing in the bill permits discrimination.”
That claim is blatantly false, and on several counts. For example, it is false in its claim that the bill does not permit discrimination — permitting discrimination is its clear and obvious mission. Among other things, HB 757 would gut local laws in Atlanta and elsewhere that protect gay Georgians against discrimination. A landlord who wants to deny housing to a gay couple, an employer who wants to fire a gay worker, or an employer who wants to deny health insurance and other benefits to a legally gay couple would be free to do so under state law as long as he or she cited religious belief as the reason.
The bill also creates a faith-based excuse to discriminate against gay people as a class, regardless of whether they are or wish to be legally married. It allows religious-based discrimination by those who believe "that marriage should only be between a man and a woman or that sexual relations are properly reserved to such a union (emphasis mine)." In other words, simply being gay is cause enough to be targeted for legalized bigotry.
The bill does include a provision barring government employees from acting upon their own anti-gay bias, as did Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis in Kentucky. But it nonetheless opens the door wide for discrimination from another tax-funded source.
The state of Georgia and local governments contract regularly with faith-based organizations to provide public services. That’s fine; those groups often do important work. But in such cases, the faith-based organizations are acting as agents of the state, performing state functions using state dollars. Under HB 757, those agencies will be free to deny those taxpayer-funded services, such as adoption, to gay Georgians.
Two more points:
1.) The bill is likely to have serious economic repercussions, as the example of Indiana has demonstrated. Companies do not want to relocate to or do business in states that establish themselves as havens for anti-gay bigotry. The film industry, which plans to open several major studios in the state, is particularly vulnerable. The fact that this legislation is hitting the headlines just as the SEC presidential primary looms, with the political attention of the nation switching to Georgia and the South, only compounds the danger.
2.) HB 757 would almost certainly be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Romer v. Evans, a 6-3 ruling from 20 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Colorado law that created a special exemption allowing gay Americans to be targeted for discrimination. The court ruled that such laws are unconstitutional because they do not give all citizens equal protection.
Gov. Nathan Deal and House Speaker David Ralston have expressed misgivings about the bill, and ought to let it die the quiet death it deserves.
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