Written by Don Byrd
The Georgia House is now considering HB 757, the “Pastor Protection Act,” which the Senate passed after amending it with controversial legislation. Any person or religious organization that refuses to do business with someone due to religious objections to their marital status would be protected under the banner of religious liberty against charges of discrimination.
The bill has sparked a firestorm of criticism, including a letter (via AJC’s blog) sent to House Speaker David Ralston, and Governor Nathan Deal by Joe Whitley, former U.S. Department of Justice Official under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, lambasting the newly amended proposal.
The Pastor Protection part of the bill, he rightly notes, is unnecessary. The new provision, he argues, “creates a wide range of new rights for individuals and organizations to discriminate against others.”
He concludes:
After surveying this piece of legislation, I note that in the name of tolerance, this legislation likely will cause more in the way of intolerance for those whose private marital and family relationships may be disfavored by a particular faith. Georgia does not need to enact a law such as this to maintain the freedom of religion or protect deeply held religious beliefs, which the Constitution and Bill of Rights already protect. Moreover, no person should have religious beliefs imposed on them without their consent. While I am sympathetic to the fact that a number of my fellow citizens have been led to believe that their personal beliefs are unprotected absent such legislation, as I have shown, this is simply not the case. Instead, passage of the Act likely would lead to real harm to many people, as well as to our State and its reputation.
Read the whole thing, which addresses many issues raised in the bill in some detail.
