Georgia Civil Rights Bill Won’t Protect LGBT People

Protestors gather at the Georgia state capitol to express their outrage at the legislature’s
opposition to LGBT civil rights legislation. Photo: Georgia Equality.

A recent bill to provide civil rights protections to Georgians will not include LGBT people. The bill, which would provide the first language in the state to protect people from discrimination based on religion, race, color, or national origin, will not include protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, disability, age, or veteran status.

The bill will still bring Georgia closer to federal standards of anti-discrimination practices, but it comes after a bill called the First Amendment Defense Act was introduced, which would allow private business and individuals, even government employees, to discriminate against people based on religious grounds.

The issue with civil rights is that, unless people are specifically provided with protections for them, they don’t really exist. Saying you cannot discriminate against someone because they are, for example, gay, is the only sure fire way to prevent that from happening, because there are plenty of people who would discriminate against their neighbors for that specific reason.

The discarded language was part of an amendment to the bill, which was under review in subcommittee. That language was introduced to make Georgia a more welcoming state and one that was more in line with modern sensibilities, but was rejected due to what might best be described as shenanigans.

According to Georgia law, whenever a committee or subcommittee votes, any member of any committee can vote on that issue. The amendment would have passed 4 to 3, but thanks to involvement by representatives on that committee, it failed 6-4. Republicans in the Georgia state legislature are so worried about having to treat people with respect that they invoked a little used loophole to stack the deck against equality.

People who had spent time and effort to understand the issue were drowned out by a handful of outsiders who simply decided to vote on something they weren’t even involved in. Which sounds just like strangers caring about somebody else’s gender identity, or sexuality, never mind how it doesn’t impact them.