Religious freedom bill fails to pass in Georgia
Its sponsor vows to try again amid furor over similar efforts in other states.
ATLANTA — After 14 months of bitter wrangling, Georgia’s legislative session ended with lawmakers failing to pass a contentious religious freedom bill.
The defeat comes after a nationwide furor over similar legislation in Indiana and Arkansas. Opponents argued that the bill would provide a legal basis for discrimination against gays and lesbians. On Tuesday, demonstrators marched to the Capitol here, carrying signs reading, “No discrimination in Georgia” and “We are not Indiana.”
The proposed Religious Freedom Restoration Act would have forbid governments from infringing on a person’s exercise of religion without compelling interest. It would have covered individuals and religious organizations, as well as companies with a small number of shareholders.
The bill was adopted by Georgia’s Senate on March 5, then languished in the House. As activists rallied against the bill, a rift emerged in Georgia’s GOP.
In the end, it was a Republican House member who scuppered the bill by adding language last week that would prevent it from being used as a defense for discrimination. The bill’s sponsors tabled the bill, and the legislative session ended Thursday.
On Friday, state Sen. Joshua McKoon vowed he would try to revive the bill next year. “We’ve got a handful of people made nervous by this smear campaign,” he said. “If we had had floor vote yesterday, I’m confident it would have passed.”
For Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, who had indicated he would support legislation that mirrored the 1993 federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the dispute over the bill had become too rancorous. On Thursday, he urged lawmakers who sought to revive the bill to stick to the language of the 1993 act and to include an anti-discrimination clause.
McKoon said he intended to hew to federal law and to resist adding what he described as unnecessary antidiscrimination language. “It’s a tempest in a teapot,” he said. “A handful of professional activists have done a fantastic job of misrepresenting what this legislation is about. If you want to get down to brass tacks: Are we going to see people denied medical treatment, or mistreated in any way? No. It’s a firm no. There’s no gray area.”