Conservatives Regroup on Religious-Freedom Bills

Indiana isn’t the only state having trouble with religious freedom legislation. In March, Georgia’s Senate approved a religious freedom bill. Like similar laws passed the same month in Arkansas and Indiana, it expanded protections for people claiming to be acting according to their religious beliefs. Some Democrats said the vote was rammed through committee during a bathroom break, but the bill had overwhelming support on the Senate floor, where it passed 37-15. It then ran aground in the Georgia House, where moderate Republicans sided with Democrats and added an anti-discrimination amendment that the legislation’s sponsors refused to accept. “The term ‘discrimination’ is a very elastic thing that can mean a lot of different things to different people,” says Republican State Senator Josh McKoon, who sponsored the bill. “It really was going to render the underlying bill meaningless.”

On April 2, the legislature adjourned for the year without sending the legislation on to Governor Nathan Deal. McKoon plans to revive his bill when legislators return in January. He says he isn’t concerned about provoking the public backlash that prompted Indiana lawmakers to backtrack on their bill. The difference, McKoon says, is that his bill sticks to the language of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the 1993 federal law that’s inspired 21 state sequels. That law declared the government “should not substantially burden religious exercise without compelling justification.” It was meant to offer greater protections for people who felt that obeying certain laws would go against their beliefs, and like many of the early state RFRAs, it passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. “The federal act provides us with a safe harbor,” McKoon says. Deal, who voted for the 1993 RFRA as a congressman, has made similar comments. “As close as a state can stay to the original language, the safer you are,” Deal told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on April 3. (Through a spokesperson, Deal declined to comment further.)