Recently, Georgia Republicans have passed an act called the “First Amendment Defence Act” (FADA).
Why does the First Amendment need defending if it’s in the Constitution, you may ask? Fair question. The GOP in Georgia feel that their religious rights are being infringed by providing services to gay people. This law basically allows any religious organization to deny service or employment to any person based on a religious belief.
If you are a rational person, you are thinking at this point that this law can allow an insane amount of horrible discrimination. Republican Senator Greg Kirk (evidently not being a reasonable person), disagrees, saying: “It’s a live and let live bill.”
Wrong, Sen. Kirk. The First Amendment is a live and let live document. Anyone can have whatever religious beliefs they want (or not), and can’t be discriminated against for it. (And, by the way, it also prevents the government from establishing an official religion, like all the modern tea partiers are trying to do.)
The modern GOP has reversed the right-wing understanding of “religious discrimination” to include “I should be allowed to discriminate against whomever I choose based on my religious beliefs.”
FADA is in line with the new, nonsense, GOP understanding of the First, which is why they need to create a new bill to support it. According to a legal expert, FADA would allow:
“a single mother and her child [being] denied safety at the domestic violence shelter; a hospital denying a man the opportunity to say goodbye to his dying husband; a cemetery corporation denying an interracial couple a shared cemetery plot… or an unmarried couple and their child being denied a room at a hotel late at night after their car broke down.”
Not cool, guys.
And now Georgia businesses are responding. Georgia tech company 373K tweeted that they would leave the state once the bill passed in the Senate:
We are very saddened by the Georgia Senate which passed #HB757 also known as #FADA. It's time to relocate. pic.twitter.com/AhQFaZ41dx
— 373K, Inc. (@373KInc) February 19, 2016
Since then, they have continued tweeting against discrimination and have been updating their followers regarding their plans for a move. Many other businesses have spoken out against the anti-gay bill, and have signed a pledge for equality.
Their efforts have been heard by the tin-headed GOP (who apparently only hear the sound of dollars leaving the state coffers), who may be reconsidering the bill. It is heartening to see that businesses are standing up for equality in this way, and that they are able to put pressure on Georgia lawmakers. Let’s hope that FADA will die a quick death.
Featured image via Facebook.
