Atlanta may lose SuperBowl bid if Gov. Deal signs flawed "religious freedom" bill

Now will you Republicans listen?   Did the NFL get your attention when they announced that the "religious freedom" bill could affect their decision on whether to choose Atlanta's bid for an upcoming SuperBowl game, reportedly worth $400 million to local business?

How about the public opposition from:   the Atlanta Falcons' owner, the  Atlanta Braves, the Atlanta Hawks, and NASCAR?  And from the Chamber of Commerce (both Atlanta and the State of Georgia), Delta, AT&T, Dow Chemical, Intel, Microsoft, and Salesforce?

I'm talking to you, legislators, and to you, Governor Deal.   After Gov. Deal threatened to veto the "religious freedom" bill if it legalizes discrimination in any form, they passed a version with a clause cleverly worded to appear to outlaw discrimination -- but it really doesn't.   And the media hardly seems to have noticed the deceptive wording.   I suspect that even a lot of legislators who voted for the bill actually think it prohibits discrimination.

Gov. Deal's decision is still pending.  Let's hope his advisers are more discerning than the media, who have largely ignored what my letter to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution points out about an article they published Saturday.   I asked the editor to spread the word about the fake "anti-discrimination" clause in the bill.

To the Editor:

Your March 19 article about the controversial "religious freedom" bill  correctly states that "the bill says that it can't be used to allow 'discrimination on any grounds prohibited by federal or state law.'"   However, both you and the authors of the bill fail to note an important fact.  

There are no federal or state laws in Georgia that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.    Thus, HB 757 provides absolutely no protection against anti-gay discrimination, even while it pretends to be doing just that.

Further, since it mentions only federal and state laws, the implication is that the few protections provided by some local city ordinances may be ignored when it comes to someone else's religious objections.  Let's at least be honest about it and not pretend that HB 757 prohibits anti-gay discrimination -- when it clearly does not.

Ralph Roughton