GEORGIA: House Committee To Hear Arizona-Style Hate Bill Today

Apparently deaf to the new wave of GOP opposition to Arizona's hate bill, Republicans (and three Democrats) in the Georgia House are going to try the same thing today. Via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Last week, the Arizona House and Senate passed a bill intended to give individuals, businesses and other entities, including government employees, the right to discriminate against gay people. If you claim that treating gay people like anybody else -- hiring them, serving them in your restaurant, renting a hotel room to them -- is against your religious beliefs, the bill excuses you from any legal consequences of that discrimination. Now Georgia may be about to follow that bad example. House Bill 1023, "The Preservation of Religious Freedom Act," was introduced last week in the Georgia House and is scheduled for a hearing this afternoon in a House Judiciary subcommittee. That quick action suggests that the bill has at least some chance of advancing. (It should be noted that the bill has bipartisan support, with at least three Democrats as co-sponsors.)

It looks like this might be the live video link for the Georgia House Judiciary Committee. Whatever is going on right now doesn't appear to have to do with the gay hate bill. Here is the text of HB 1023.