ATLANTA — In an exclusive interview with Channel 2's Richard Elliot, Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United owner Arthur Blank expressed concerns over a new attempt by a Fayette County lawmaker to pass a religious liberty bill.
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The bill would offer certain legal protections to religious groups or people of faith even against some federal and state laws.
Critics believe it would only open the door to legal discrimination and could damage Georgia’s booming economic growth.
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“The state has led in terms of business for the last six years,” Blank said. “I think anything that we do that interferes with that is not a positive thing for our state at large.”
The bill was filed by state Sen. Marty Harbin, R-Tyrone, and he said it mirrors a federal religious liberty law. Georgia, however, does not have an underlying civil rights law, as the federal law does, protecting certain minority groups, including the LGBT community.
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“We’re very disappointed that we’re going to have this debate again in Georgia,” said Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality. “We were hoping that cooler heads would prevail, and we would not have to have a debate around creating a license to discriminate."
But Harbin insists his bill is not about discrimination. Rather, he said it’s about protecting Georgia’s religious community.
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“I don’t see it, really, as a discriminatory issue at all on that, because you could be from that community and have your religious rights violated,” Harbin said. “It would protect you the same way from that standpoint.”
Though supporters don’t know of any active cases of religious discrimination in Georgia, Georgia Baptist Mission Board’s Mike Griffin believes the bill needs to be in Georgia law for when cases come to light.
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“This will be a court standard,” Griffin said. “This is simply a court standard that’s going to be applied in case there are religious liberty cases that come forward.”
Past attempts at passing religious liberty bills have met with heavy opposition from metro Atlanta’s business community. The bill now heads to a Senate committee.
Cox Media Group
