Georgia Brands Stand Up For Equality

The Georgia state Senate just passed two “religious freedom” bills, which would allow people to deny services and basic rights available to the general public if the customer or employee is gay, unmarried, or in any way offends anyone on any level.

The proposed bills would:

• Allow individuals and private organizations to claim an imposition on their religious freedoms to make decisions otherwise protected by current law. For instance, both of these bills would allow employers to discriminate against potential employees based on current protected legal statuses — like race, sex, age, pregnancy, nationality and even religion under the guise of protecting the employer’s religious freedom.

• The legislation is tailored in a way to limit some of our most basic protections — including access to birth control for women and protection from state-sanctioned discrimination against LGBT individuals.

In an action alert sent out last week, Georgia Equality said:

These bills could allow:

-An employer to fire a woman who remarried after a divorce or who is pregnant and not married.
-A person whose religion demands pacifism and non-violence to refuse to rent an apartment to a tenant who owns a gun.
-The owner of a sandwich shop to refuse to serve a gay customer.
-A healthcare worker to refuse a woman a prescribed medication.
-A counselor be exempted from state required licensing requirements

The bill has been met with some public support and and a great deal of criticism from others, including some of Georgia’s largest employers.

Delta Air Lines issued a statement against bills like HB 1023 and a similar bill recently passed in Arizona:

“As a global values based company, Delta Air Lines is proud of the diversity of its customers and employees, and is deeply concerned about proposed measures in several states, including Georgia and Arizona, that would allow businesses to refuse service to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. If passed into law, these proposals would cause significant harm to many people and will result in job losses.”