‘Religious liberty’ bill passes Georgia House, Senate

“Pastors in Florida are now protected from potential lawsuits if they refuse to perform same-sex marriages.

Gov. Rick Scott recently signed into law HB 43, known as the “Pastor Protection Act.” It protects clergy, churches, and religious organizations and their employees from civil action if they choose not to perform a wedding for homosexual couples.

Rep. Scott Plakon, who sponsored HB 43, said most of the bill came from a similar Texas law.”

http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2016/March/Florida-Pastors-Now-Protected-from-Refusing-Gay-Marriages

….if you have Florida, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Texas all with religious freedom laws like this, that would mean the Super Bowl might be held every year either in California, or in some place where it’s likely to snow in January. And the halftime show might be decidedly more warmly attired.

(I’ve wanted to see the Super Bowl back in Lambeau for decades….)

Seriously, two things. First of all, companies are going to have a tough time ignoring the South’s lower tax rates—investors simply won’t let them do it. Next, it illustrates the 1st Amendment issues brought about by the Court’s abuse of the 14th. To get one side’s right to flowers and cakes, another side loses their right not to participate in their “weddings”. Certainly the Founding Fathers and the authors of the 14th Amendment, all of whom lived with anti-sodomy laws (some even writing them), would be perplexed at the idea that the 1st and 14th Amendment protected this.

Water under the bridge, though, until we get five Scalias on the Court, and the most plausible objection—that objecting to serve someone because of their behavior is not the same as refusing to serve them because of their skin color or ethnicity—appears to have been discarded.