This week, Tennessee Senate shot down a ‘religious freedom’ bill claiming to protect those that have deep religious convictions. Naturally, they are pointing toward gay marriage. Rep. Andy Holt said that the bill would:
“give the ability for people with strongly held or deeply held religious convictions the opportunity to embrace their religion or their view on marriage without legal repercussions.”
The bill was intended to allow churches, ministers, clergy members, etc. to refuse service to gay people. It was shot down because it was putting too much religion in the government. How dare we infringe on their rights to infringe on other peoples’ rights?!
Georgia has also passed an anti-gay bill in their legislature.
They are also calling it a “religious freedom” bill much like Tennessee. It allows pastors to refuse to marry gay couples. It also included a First Amendment Defense Act which allows tax funded service providers to refuse service to gay people.
They also gave the excuse about it being for equal protection. The Georgia Unites Against Discrimination Facebook group says this bill will allow open discrimination of LGBT Georgia residents.
Disney has vowed to stop filming movies in the state if the law gets enacted. This would pull $6 billion from the state. Other companies such as Dell, Apple, Hilton, Marriot, and more have also released statements opposing this legislation.
Unfortunately, my state, Alabama, already had these kind of laws. Joe Godfrey, Director of Alabama Citizens Action Project, erroneously believes that “Christian values” are under attack. He said:
“We’re being told as Christians that we no longer have the right to live our lives according to our Christian principles. We’re having to change our convictions based on what is politically correct at the time. We need to have that religious freedom to live our lives as long as it doesn’t endanger someone.”
The lawmakers here are working on a bill similar to the Indiana bill against gay rights. We’ve made progress in gay rights with gay marriage being legalized, but we still have a long way to go for LGBT equality.
Featured image by ep_jhu via flickr.com, available under Creative Commons 2.0 license.
