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Very interesting - that's definitely hypocritical of Disney. These huge global companies tend to be selective in their outrage.
Yep, you're right. As are Ant and tissle. This is all just posturing on Disney's part. But if helps discourage Gov Deal from signing the bill into law, then I guess it's at least good for something.
Also, I think Florida has some kind of Religious Freedom law already. And I don't see Disney ripping up their amusement parks and leaving that state in disgust.
I want to point out that first and foremost, I am absolutely opposed to this bill and it's embarrassing for our state. With that said, can someone please explain why this is not a national issue? Considering there are 36 states that have already passed or are in the process of passing similar legislation, is Georgia (and Indiana?) unfairly being treated as the whipping boy here?
Why haven't there been similar headlines about boycotting Connecticut? Where are all the companies and industries threatening to leave Chicago? Is our bill really that much worse or do we simply need to be twice as progressive to make up for a southern stigma?
Again, I think this should be dealt with at the federal level, and it personally sickens me that 36 states have similar legislation. I am merely looking for someone to shed some light on this because I find it hard to believe that there isn't any outrage regarding the other 35 states. That alone has me worried that our legislation is drastically worse than the rest.
Teal States: States (20) that had existing RFRA Laws prior to their 2015 legislative session.
Golden-Brown States: States (16) had RFRA legislation proposed during the 2015 legislative season. Only two, Indiana and Arkansas passed.
I want to point out that first and foremost, I am absolutely opposed to this bill and it's embarrassing for our state. With that said, can someone please explain why this is not a national issue? Considering there are 36 states that have already passed or are in the process of passing similar legislation, is Georgia (and Indiana?) unfairly being treated as the whipping boy here?
Why haven't there been similar headlines about boycotting Connecticut? Where are all the companies and industries threatening to leave Chicago? Is our bill really that much worse or do we simply need to be twice as progressive to make up for a southern stigma?
Again, I think this should be dealt with at the federal level, and it personally sickens me that 36 states have similar legislation. I am merely looking for someone to shed some light on this because I find it hard to believe that there isn't any outrage regarding the other 35 states. That alone has me worried that our legislation is drastically worse than the rest.
Teal States: States (20) that had existing RFRA Laws prior to their 2015 legislative session.
Golden-Brown States: States (16) had RFRA legislation proposed during the 2015 legislative season. Only two, Indiana and Arkansas passed.
Most of those other states passed theirs when being anti-gay was still in style. Indiana was the other recent one last year and there was a huge national backlash with boycott threats for that one too.
Also, some of those other states just have state versions mirroring the federal RFRA. This bill (and the Indiana one) go further than that.
Why haven't there been similar headlines about boycotting Connecticut? Where are all the companies and industries threatening to leave Chicago? Is our bill really that much worse or do we simply need to be twice as progressive to make up for a southern stigma?
The reason there haven't been boycotts in Connecticut, since you specifically cited that state, is that they have anti-discrimination laws in addition to their religious freedom laws, and because when those religious freedom laws were passed 20+ years ago, same-sex marriage wasn't a thing that some people felt needed to be countered through legislation.
Beyond that, yes, Georgia's bill, similar to the one that was passed in Indiana, is much broader than the religious freedom laws in those other states.
I want to point out that first and foremost, I am absolutely opposed to this bill and it's embarrassing for our state. With that said, can someone please explain why this is not a national issue? Considering there are 36 states that have already passed or are in the process of passing similar legislation, is Georgia (and Indiana?) unfairly being treated as the whipping boy here?
Why haven't there been similar headlines about boycotting Connecticut? Where are all the companies and industries threatening to leave Chicago? Is our bill really that much worse or do we simply need to be twice as progressive to make up for a southern stigma?
Again, I think this should be dealt with at the federal level, and it personally sickens me that 36 states have similar legislation. I am merely looking for someone to shed some light on this because I find it hard to believe that there isn't any outrage regarding the other 35 states. That alone has me worried that our legislation is drastically worse than the rest.
Teal States: States (20) that had existing RFRA Laws prior to their 2015 legislative session.
Golden-Brown States: States (16) had RFRA legislation proposed during the 2015 legislative season. Only two, Indiana and Arkansas passed.
Most of those other states passed theirs when being anti-gay was still in style. Indiana was the other recent one last year and there was a huge national backlash with boycott threats for that one too.
Also, some of those other states just have state versions mirroring the federal RFRA. This bill (and the Indiana one) go further than that.
Most (if not almost all) of the 20 states that had existing RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act) laws prior to 2015 passed them as a reaction to a 1997 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the federal RFRA (which was nearly unanimously passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993) did not apply to religious liberty/freedom cases brought in state courts, only cases brought in federal court.
The 1993 federal RFRA and almost all of the state RFRAs that were passed prior to about 2015 were not passed as a reaction to the specter of same-sex marriage or the advancement of same-sex civil rights but were passed as a reaction to some Native Americans being fired from their jobs for using Peyote in religious/tribal ceremonies.
Many states did not really start pushing and passing RFRAs in reaction to same-sex marriage and civil rights until after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2013 that was favorable towards same-sex marriage and civil rights and sent the signal that the court would eventually rule that same-sex marriage was legal in all 50 states, which it did last summer in 2015.
Most notably, before the growing massive national pushback and backlash that is going on against Georgia's pending religious liberty law (officially titled the "Georgia Free Exercise Protection Act") and before the massive pushback/backlash against Indiana's RFRA law that nearly destroyed that state's economy and public image in 2015, there was nearly a massive backlash in response to a controversial RFRA bill in Arizona that that state's deeply conservative state legislature had passed by overwhelming margins in 2014 in response to the then-growing possibility of legalized same-sex marriage. After the NFL threatened to pull the Super Bowl that the state was slated to host in 2015 and after other major businesses and industries threatened to boycott the state, Arizona's very conservative governor, Jan Brewer (who had signed into law a controversial illegal immigration bill that hurt that state's economy in 2010) vetoed the bill.
Some theorize that Disney knows that Deal will veto the bill, but speaking out for PR purposes which I could fully believe.
Probably so.
I put the chances of a Deal veto at about 70% or so.....Which 70% may not sound as high as many who oppose this bill might think it should be, but is actually very high given the political circumstances of the bill being supported by almost all of the state's Republican Party apparatus which currently enjoys supermajority status in state politics.
The thing is that large corporate entities who oppose this bill (like Disney and the state and metro chambers of commerce, Salesforce, etc) have to be very careful not to overplay their hand and appear as if they are trying to bully the governor into vetoing a bill that a very large and very vocal part of the state's electorate strongly supports.
They should be very careful not to create a situation where the governor (even though he seems to personally dislike this bill) feels like he has no choice but to sign the bill into law as a means of appearing to push back (in front of a largely right-of-center audience in state) against the powerful outside forces who are pushing a left-of-center social agenda on an electorate dominated by deeply conservative right-of-center voters.
Not appearing to bully the governor into a situation where he feels he has to assert himself against outside national forces who are pushing a progressive social agenda on a deeply conservative electorate that does not want it is one of the major reasons why many corporate interests (like the 500-plus companies that make up the "Georgia Prospers" coalition that strongly opposes the bill) are very quietly (but very aggressively) lobbying the governor to veto the bill behind the scenes....So as not to overplay their hand and accidentally force a situation where the governor feels backed into a corner in front of a deeply conservative electorate that demands he fight back against what they view as left-of-center interests pushing a liberal agenda by signing the bill into law.
Last edited by Born 2 Roll; 03-24-2016 at 01:17 PM..
Just wondering...If Nathan Deal signs this bill, would that put his political career in jeopardy among conservatives in Georgia?
That's an excellent question.
If Governor Deal signs this bill into law, no it would not put his political career in jeopardy among conservatives in Georgia. If anything it would make him a hero amongst the deeply conservative factions that make up the hard-right side of the political spectrum in Georgia.
The hard-right (which currently dominates the state's electoral process by way of Republican primary elections) wants Republican politicians to be "culture warriors" who fight to reassert conservative social, cultural and religious values in the face of a changing society that seems to be moving towards the center and left on many issues of social, cultural and religious significance.
Signing this bill into law would make Nathan Deal a heroic "culture warrior" in the eyes of almost all social, religious and cultural conservatives because to them the passage of this bill into law would be a big win that advanced their traditional right-of-center agenda directly in the face of an advancing progressive social agenda that they feel has them under attack and on the defensive.
But while the signage of this bill into law by Governor Deal would most likely make him a well-respected culture warrior on the hard-right side of the political spectrum, it would most assuredly put his political legacy in extreme jeopardy (if not totally and completely irreparably damage his legacy) because of the massive public relations and economic fallout that would occur after he signed the bill into law.
The MASSIVE public relations and economic fallout (which would be akin to a nuclear bomb going off over the Atlanta metro area) that would occur after he signed the bill into law would be catastrophic to this state's economic well-being.....An event which would potentially hurt the Republican Party in Georgia (and potentially even put a massive dent in GOP dominance in Georgia) by potentially creating lots of angry new voters (and converting many centrist and moderate voters) who might not be prone to vote for a Republican Party whom is willing to nuke the state's economy to push an agenda that many see as blatantly enabling discrimination.
As another poster mentioned earlier (I think it was Airforceguy), the state's now-dormant Democratic Party would potentially have an opening to become competitive again in state politics when the state's business community threw its massive financial support behind it after pulling it from a Republican Party apparatus which had just willingly nuked the state's economy with the signing of this bill (which appears to many, including the business community and much of the outside, to enable discrimination in the name of religion) into law.
If Nathan Deal were to sign this bill into law, he would go down in history as the governor who did irreparable harm to the state's national and international public image and economy and would also potentially go down as the Republican governor who brought an end to Republican dominance of Georgia....A Republican dominance which would have only lasted for 16 years (or two gubernatorial administrations) after about 130 years of Democratic Party rule.
If Nathan Deal wants his legacy to be that of the governor who basically nuked the state's economy and turned Georgia from red to bluish purple and maybe even eventually outright blue so that a bunch of ignorant yahoos can attempt to legally discriminate against "teh gays" (and all LGBTQ people, and single mothers, and unmarried couples, and interracial couples, and people of other denominations and faiths, and non-religious people), then he should definitely sign this bill into law.
BUT....If Nathan Deal wants to retain his growing legacy as one of the most effective governors in the state's history who made Georgia a leading international hub for television and film production (and made TV and Film into a multibillion-dollar business in the state), made Georgia "the number-one state in the union" in which to do business, and extended Republican dominance over Georgia politics, then he should definitely VETO this bill.
Last edited by Born 2 Roll; 03-24-2016 at 01:21 PM..
CBS, NBC Universal, MGM and Discovery have joined the growing chorus of companies and figures (which include Starz, Empire co-creator Lee Daniels, 21st Century Fox, Lionsgate, Sony, Time Warner, etc) that are calling for Georgia Governor Nathan Deal to veto House Bill 757 (the Georgia Free Exercise Protection Act).
Last edited by Born 2 Roll; 03-24-2016 at 02:58 PM..
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