Protecting pastors from a non-existent threat

There was a letter to the editor from Rick Jones in The Telegraph this past Sunday that echoed the spirit of columns I have written in the past on the subject of public access laws. Referring to the recently proposed law known as the "Pastor Protection Act" that was vetoed by Gov. Nathan Deal, Jones said that he thinks that "anyone who owns a business should be allowed to deny service to anyone because of whatever serves the owner's interests."

That's a very libertarian point of view, one that appeals to me as a general rule. But all the brouhaha about laws being considered and in some cases passed that enable business owners to legally deny providing services to people who have lifestyles that conflict with their "sincerely held religious beliefs" (which means gay people, obviously) has caused me to take a fresh look at the issue. So I did a little research on the history of public access laws.

As far back as the 16th century there were laws in England that required certain widely used businesses like stagecoaches and surgeons to serve all paying customers. Here in the United States public access became an issue due to racial segregation and was addressed in sweeping fashion by the federal Civil Rights Act in 1964. Title II of that legislation requires that certain specific business that provide services to the general public such as restaurants, hotels, transportation providers and health-care providers to offer their service to any paying customer, specifically forbidding discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin.

Whatever the libertarian in me thinks and feels, reality says that the Civil Rights Act is never going to be repealed. Legal protection from discrimination by certain businesses, for certain groups, is a fact of life in this country and that isn't going to change. But note that there is no mention of sexual orientation in the Civil Rights Act and it is not, at this time, illegal on a federal level for a business owner to deny his services to a gay person. The cases you have heard about in the news where people have been sued for denying their services to gay people (often associated with gay weddings) are in response to state and local laws that do address discrimination based on sexual orientation.

There are no such laws in the state of Georgia, which might lead a thinking person to wonder why the state Legislature saw fit to pass legislation to protect clergymen and religious nonprofits from being prosecuted under laws that do not actually exist. Gov. Deal referred to this fact in his statement on why he vetoed the bill, saying he could find no examples of the faith-hostile incidents it sought to protect citizens from having ever occurred in the state.

Realistically, this "Pastor Protection Act" had nothing to do with the law. It was an emotional response to a highly divisive issue. Pastors don't need protecting — there is not a single example in the history of our nation of a clergyman being coerced by the government to perform any religious ceremony that runs counter to the creeds of his or her faith.

Still, if the Legislature had stuck to that innocuously unnecessary provision, the governor would have certainly signed it. But they went further, giving non-profit agencies specifically enumerated rights to deny employment, service, and renting of property if said denial was based on "sincerely held religious beliefs."

Given the current climate in the business world, that very specific attempt to codify discrimination against gay people caused an eminently predictable avalanche of threats from major employers to pull up stakes and leave Georgia if Deal signed it into law. It was probably the easiest decision he's made in his political life, vetoing a law that protected citizens from a non-existent threat that would have brought serious economic consequences down on his state.

I'm just glad I don't live in North Carolina, where they have passed a law that could require everyone to present a birth certificate before entering a public bathroom. Imagine the fun to be had there when post-operative transsexuals are legally bound to use restrooms that correspond to the gender they were born as but now in no way resemble. We certainly live in interesting times, don't we?

Bill Ferguson is a resident of Warner Robins. Readers can write him at fergcolumn@hotmail.com.

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 6:58 PM with the headline "Protecting pastors from a non-existent threat ."