Georgia’s governor has announced he will veto a measure aimed at protecting religious organizations from being forced to perform same sex marriages. The announcement comes weeks after Florida’s governor signed a version of the so called Pastor Protection Act.
Georgia’s bill started out looking very similar to Florida’s bill. It protected churches and clergy from lawsuits if they refused to participate in a marriage that violates their beliefs. But LGBT or lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group, Georgia Equality spokesman Jeff Graham says through the legislative process, the Georgia bill changed. In addition to the Pastor Protection Act language, he says lawmakers added a state version of some federal legislation.
"Called the First Amendment Defense Act and then a version of the Federal Religious Freedom restoration Act. All three of these bills on their own caused some problems and concerns to the LGBT community, but when all three of these bills were cobbled together there were a number of unintended consequences.”
Graham says that created situations that could let an organization receiving state money deny service to someone based on their religious beliefs, or fire an employee based on those beliefs. Meanwhile, Florida’s measure remains focused on marriage.
