RFRA Gets a Hearing
Former Attorney General Mike Bowers testifies against the Georgia Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Photo: Jon Richards
Tuesday afternoon, a special subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee conducted a three hour long hearing on Senate Bill 139, the Georgia Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The committee took introductory testimony from the bill’s sponsor, Senator Josh McKoon, and then an hour’s worth of testimony from supporters and opponents of the measure.
Supporters, including Mike Griffin, representing the Georgia Baptist Convention and Georgia Right to Life, Tanya Ditty with the Concerned Women of America and Adam Woodward with the Center of Law and Religion, were among those speaking in favor of the bill. Many of the speakers put forward incidents they claimed would be resolved more promptly if Georgia had a RFRA, although by my reckoning, all referred to issues involving mainstream Christianity, and none dealt with smaller, minority religions. And virtually all asked that the bill be passed without amendments, including former State Rep. Bob Snelling, who said, “I am here to ask you to allow a full House vote on the unamended bill. To deny this would be an irresponsible act of legislative injustice.”
Leading off the opposition to the bill was former Georgia Attorney General Mike Bowers. Representing Georgia Equality, Bowers maintained that the bill provides an excuse to discriminate and an excuse to exclude. He claimed that citizens will become arbiters of the law and would be making law unto themselves on issues including vaccinations and school coursework. In questioning from committee members, Rep. Barry Fleming asked why Bowers didn’t present any examples of discrimination against gays as a result of RFRAs passed in other states. Bowers had no good answers to that.
Other speakers opposed to the bill included a representative from the Georgia Hotel and Lodging Association who said that two organizations planning conventions in Atlanta have threatened to go elsewhere should RFRA pass, and Merwin Peake, the brother of State Rep. Allen Peake, who used the example of bakeries refusing to serve a gay couple as a reason to oppose the bill.
The major witness against the bill, however was former State Rep. Edward Lindsey. Lindsey had a seat in front, almost at the table that the committee sat on, and he presented an alternative version of the bill that offered civil rights protections to those that might be discriminated against. Building on the editorial that first appeared in Peach Pundit last Friday, Lindsey took almost half an hour of questions from committee members who treated his proposal, which you can see at the bottom of this post, as if it were a substitute for McKoon’s bill.
What’s next? Chairman Wendell Willard indicated that he planned to call another meeting of the special subcommittee on Wednesday. At that point, they could recommend SB 129 or a substitute, possibly based on Lindsey’s proposal, to the full Judiciary Committee, which is expected to meet on Thursday. If that scenario holds true, a version of the Religious Liberty bill could be heard in the Rules Committee on Friday, making it possible to have a vote in the full House on Tuesday, March 30th, Day 39 of the legislative session.
You can read the text of Lindsey’s proposal below the fold.
Sent from my iPhone
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