Posted on 03/28/2016 9:22:46 AM PDT by NYer
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal on Monday said he will veto legislation shielding opponents of same-sex marriage, after a groundswell of opposition from companies threatening to boycott the state if it became law.
The Republican announced his decision during a news conference in his office at the Georgia Capitol, saying, “I have examined the protections that this bill proposes to provide to the faith based community and I can find no examples of any of those circumstances occurring in our state."
Deal added, “I do not think that we have to discriminate against anyone to protect the faith-based community in Georgia.”
Republican majorities passed the bill to broadly protect people whose actions were rooted in their religion. It also would have protected clergy who won’t perform gay marriages and people who won’t attend a wedding for religious reasons.
Churches and affiliated religious groups could have used their faith as an argument for refusing to serve or hire someone.
The bill’s opponents said it excused discrimination and could trample local ordinances protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Coca-Cola and other big-name Georgia companies joined the NFL, prominent Hollywood figures and film studios urging Deal to reject the proposal. Some threatened to boycott the state if Deal didn’t veto.
Deal, in his second and final term, heatedly said that those threats and questions about “my convictions and my character” from some in the religious community were misguided.
“I do not respond very well to insults or to threats,” he said. “The people of Georgia deserve a leader who will make sound judgments based on solid reasons that are not inflamed by emotion.”
Deal said he would sign the bill had it passed in its original form, which was limited to protecting clergy who declined to perform same-sex marriages. He said his decision to reject the bill was “about the character of our state and the character of our people. Georgia is a welcoming state; it is full of loving, kind and generous people.”
Georgia’s General Assembly already has left the Capitol for the year, adjourning after midnight on Thursday.
Lawmakers can ask the governor to convene a special session, but need a three-fifths majority in both the House and Senate.
If they can reach that threshold, overriding a governor’s veto requires a two-thirds vote in each chamber. Republicans don’t hold that margin in either the House or Senate, and all Democrats voted against the bill. Several Republicans in the House and one in the House also cast dissenting votes.
Representatives for House Speaker David Ralston and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle didn’t immediately respond to request for comment on Deal’s veto or their next steps.
National gay-rights organizations immediately hailed Deal’s decision.
“We thank Governor Deal for doing the right thing,” said Matt McTighe, Freedom for All Americans executive director. “The governor understands that while our freedom of religion is of critical importance, it doesn’t mean there’s a need for harmful exemptions that can lead to discrimination."
Not surprising. Some of these laws are just ridiculously pre-historic. What’s more, passing them or not passing them will do nothing to stop people from objecting based on faith.
Nope. Actually, our legislature DROPPED that idea like a hot potato when their corporate masters objected to it. The bill that reached the governor was ONLY about religious organizations.
So what did it say? That religious organizations couldn’t be forced to act against their beliefs?
That the Southern Baptist Church had to hire homosexual bus drivers?
What do Georgia voters think about the religious protection bill? Do they support it but remain silent?
He once was my congressman and I did vote for him as governor. I don’t know if he eligible this time around or not in 2016 or whatever, frankly. I can assure anyone this, however. It is the last time this man can expect a vote from me for anything. That is a fact.
He knows what it is about. He's just prattling this crap to give him a face saving out for bowing to pressure from the Big League Pro-"Big Anus" Corporations like Disney and General Electric.
He's a Coward and a Sellout, and he's trying to dress up his betrayal in pretty ribbons.
What I don’t get is the idea that the governor being term limited would make him more susceptible to pressure from big business. If not being electable ends the impact of one group, then it ends the impact of all groups.
Unless, of course, they are BUYING him off.
It was so watered down that it’s hard to say what it protected. Basically, it kept a church from having to host a gay wedding reception. Now they will be required to do that if their facilities are open to other weddings.
There are no wedding in our church that are not officiated by our pastor and according to the rules of our denomination, which currently still consider homosexuality incompatible with Christian teaching. That could change in May, depending of the 2016 convention. We’ll see.
If that were to change, then I suppose I’d be liable.
Precventing tyranny of the minority is not discrimination, it prevents discrimination of the overwhelming majority.
Fuchng coward moron.
He would rather discriminate against the overwhelming majority than the tyrannical warped, perverted mimority.
Dont be fooled that hemisn’t for discrimination. He sure the crap is.
Otherwise, if Georgia has state equality laws that are being used to bully Christians, then the state is in violation of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment imo. Noting that the states have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect LGBT “rights,” Section 1 prohibits states from making laws / policies which abridge constitutionally enumerated protections, 1st Amendment-protected speech and religious expression in the case of business owners.
14th Amendment, Section 1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States [emphasis added]; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
This pressure works on his social peer group, which presumably he still wants to remain friends with.
If not being electable ends the impact of one group, then it ends the impact of all groups.
No, it does not. We are all social creatures, and subject to pressures from our social peer groups. Presumably he hangs out with country club Republicans who would be affected by boycotts of their state. Besides, we've got the New York and Los Angeles media keeping up their constant drumbeat that Homo-everything is the wave of the future.
The upper echelons of both Parties do not feel this is a hill worthy dying on. Loss of money on the other hand, is always a hill worth dying on, and so they will simply suppress their party's annoying social conservative wing because money is everything.
Throw the bastard out of office.
so why did freepers reelect bammy and his homosexual agenda?....why?.....its a little late to start worrying about the end or our republic.
Nothing is ever going to be done to protect Christians from these perverts as long as We The People keep on being addicted to what big business has made us think we can’t live without. Look at the list of conglomerates that threatened this Governor. We have to make up our minds which one we want most, freedom from having to serve deviants against our will or the modern pleasures we’re addicted to having from such enablers as Fox Entertainment to name only one.
They won’t rest until they have us living in a nation that would put Soddom and Gomorrah to shame. Is it worth it?
May this spineless weasel be removed from office in the fastest way possible.
vote him out...
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