Georgia governor Nathan Deal announced on Monday that he would veto the religious liberty bill passed by the state legislature (House Bill 757).
"I do not think that we have to discriminate against anyone to protect the faith-based community in Georgia, of which I and my family have been a part of for all of our lives," said Deal. "For that reason, I will veto House Bill 757."
If passed, the bill would have protected clergy from being forced to marry same-sex couples; protected businesses from being required to operate during a religious Sabbath; protected religious non-profit organizations from providing services that compel them to violate their religious beliefs; and protected religious non-profits from hiring people who do not share their religious beliefs, among others.
HB 757, which was called the Free Exercise Protection Act, was met with great opposition from LGBT activists as well as various major businesses, including Apple, Dell, The Walt Disney Co., Coca-Cola, Time Warner Cable, Marvel, the NFL, Yelp, Microsoft, and Twitter, among others. Disney and Marvel threatened they would no longer film movies in the state, while the NFL asserted it would pull out from holding the Super Bowl there. Opponents of the bill argued that the measure would have far-reaching consequences for the LGBT community.
Supporters of the bill argued that the measure is moderate and includes anti-discriminatory language, as House Speaker Dennis Ralston described.
"It is regrettable that the merits of this measure have been ignored in the days since its passage by critics who had not taken the time to read the bill or understand the legal issues involved," he told CNN.
In his statement, Deal argued that HB 757 may not be necessary in the state, comparing the situation in Georgia with that of other states.
"While most people would agree that government should not force such actions, there has not been a single instance of such taking place in Georgia," Deal said, referring to compelling pastors or churches to solemnize a same-sex wedding or rent out its facilities for such an occasion.
"If there has been any case of this type in our state it has not been called to my attention. The examples being cited by the proponents of this bill have occurred in other states that have very different laws than Georgia," Deal continued, citing laws in New Mexico and Colorado that have caused problems for a Christian photographer who refused to photograph a same-sex wedding and a baker in colorado who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding in those two states respectively. New Mexico has a Human Rights Act that caused the case against the photographer to lose the lawsuit, while the baker's case in Colorado was determined based on the state's Public Accommodation Act, Deal said.
Supporters of HB 757, however, seem to view Deal's veto as a reaction to the threats from major corporations.
Russell Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said Deal's veto is a "sell-out to big business pressure on religious freedom" through a tweet, and called his action "shameful."
HB 757 was passed in the state Senate by a 37-18 vote, and in the state Assembly by a 104-65 vote.
