The Georgia State Legislature passed something of a Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the latest session of the  General Assembly. Now, in spite of what you may have heard in the news, or in press releases from critics, this bill was quite modest. Nonetheless, the cry of “Discrimination!” went up from the hallowed halls of the state capitol in Atlanta.

Why all the hoopla over the Georgia bill? It certainly is not, as I will demonstrate, a discriminatory piece of legislation, nothing like the LGBT groups said it was. The threatened boycotts don’t demonstrate any sort of closely-held principles of the corporations that said they would leave. The entire opposition to the bill was based on lies and misinformation. What was the point?

Listen in and find out what I think was happening.

Mentioned links:

Nathan Deal vetoes Georgia’s ‘religious liberty’ bill

Strict Scrutiny [TheFreeDictionary.com]

Georgia 2015-2016 Regular Session - HB 757

Disney Demands Georgia Let Go of Religious Freedom

Show transcript

“Discrimination!” That word has become something of a rallying cry when the Left can’t come up with specifics as to why they don’t like this or that action by private or public organizations. Now, you might say that “racism” fits the bill, but that’s just a specific kind of discrimination. Besides, we’ve already discusses Ari’s  Law in show 131 back on January 25th, where Ari Mendelson noted that “racism” really is just valuing something – anything – more than you value multiculturalism. No, discrimination is a bit broader, and can be applied just about anywhere.

They shout it like Tevye  in “Fiddler on the Roof” as he extolled the value of tradition. “Discriminatioooon!” If all else fails, call what they don’t like “discrimination”, and they don’t have to make any intelligent argument. And further, various Leftist organizations will spring into protest, and other various groups will threaten a boycott or something. Doesn’t matter what the issue is, if you can claim discrimination, you’ll get support, even if you can’t prove discrimination, or even if you can’t really say how that discrimination would happen.

The Georgia State Legislature passed something of a Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the latest session of the  General Assembly. Now, in spite of what you may have heard in the news, or in press releases from critics, this bill was quite modest. Nonetheless, the cry of “Discrimination!” went up from the hallowed halls of the state capitol in Atlanta. So, to be clear, here are the highlights of this eeevil bill:

It would allow faith-based organizations to deny services to those who violate their “sincerely held religious belief”. This is why the bill got its nickname, the Pastor Protection Act.
It preserves those organizations’ right to fire employees who aren’t in accord with those beliefs.
It mirrors language found in the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was signed by President Bill Clinton and adopted by dozens of states, requiring government to prove a “compelling governmental interest” before it interferes with a person’s exercise of religion.
It includes a clause saying it could not be used to allow discrimination banned by state or federal law.
It doesn’t apply to businesses. It did at the start, but this got removed in the process of compromise.

So let’s hit each of these points, and see why there is so much opposition to this.

About denying services: Mostly this is for preserving a church’s right not to perform same-sex weddings, or have their facilities used to perform them. Critics keep saying that no one will force churches to violate their beliefs, but they apparently don’t want to give them legal protection from it. And yes, groups like the Salvation Army would still give out food and such to needy gays and lesbians. There’s not a single church out there trying to stop or a