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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.
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