Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee has the opportunity to fix the anti-LGBT adoption bill (HB 159) by removing discriminatory amendments targeting same-sex couples and prospective LGBT parents for discrimination. Instead, the latest word from the State House is that committee members, led by Sen. William Ligon, are doubling down on the anti-LGBT components of the legislation—which would leave the bill tainted beyond repair.

In addition to the thousands of Georgians who have already spoken out against HB 159, leading national child welfare organizations have penned an open letter to the Georgia Legislature in opposition to the discriminatory legislation. See that letter here.

Then, read the email below—which went out to supporters of LGBT equality earlier today—and find ways to take action to block anti-LGBT HB 159.

—

Today HB 159—the adoption bill that got spoiled by anti-LGBT amendments—is on the schedule for a second hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Committee members were tasked with fixing the bill and removing the anti-LGBT components. But instead, Sen. Ligon—the lead proponent of the discriminatory amendments—is digging in.

We’ve got intel that Sen. Ligon is planning to introduce an add-on today that he claims “fixes” the bill, but in reality, it just doubles down on his original agenda: To advance LGBT discrimination by permitting private adoption agencies to refuse to work with same-sex couples and prospective LGBT parents in Georgia.

This bill could advance to the full Senate for a final vote as soon as TOMORROW. Rush a message to your Senators now and urge them to reject this tainted adoption bill.

Clearly, Sen. Ligon does NOT have the best interest of Georgians at heart.

He’s willing to kill a good adoption bill that advanced out of the House with strong bipartisan support.
…to put Georgia’s 10,000+ orphans and foster children in harms way by restricting the already overburdened pool of loving families.
…to jeopardize hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to our hamstrung adoption care system.

…and for what? Just to advance anti-LGBT discrimination in Georgia.

What’s more, his discriminatory agenda is already taking a dangerous toll on Georgia’s national reputation. Today, a host of national adoption organizations are penning letters to Georgia legislators in opposition to the anti-LGBT amendments in this otherwise strong adoption bill.

This insanity has to stop. We’ve got 24 hours to flood the inboxes of Georgia state senators to urge them to reject anti-LGBT HB 159. Click here to send your message now.

I thought we had moved beyond this sad chapter in our state’s history, friend. But today Sen. Ligon proved that some lawmakers will stop at nothing to write discrimination into state laws.

Thanks for speaking out and holding your Senators accountable to welfare of everyday Georgians.

Sen. Ligon willing to jeopardize urgently needed adoption bill to advance anti-LGBT agenda

ATLANTA – Legislators in the Senate are doubling down on a discriminatory amendment that threatens to derail HB 159, despite widespread opposition that includes Governor Nathan Deal. The amendment to the legislation would allow adoption agencies receiving taxpayer funds to discriminate against same-sex couples and LGBT people. The Judiciary Committee passed HB 159 with Ligon’s amendment late last week, and the bill was remanded back to the committee on Tuesday with the understanding that the amendment should be stripped. But it now appears unlikely that the Judiciary Committee will make the necessary changes, meaning it could advance to the Senate floor in the coming days with the discriminatory measure intact.

“It’s astonishing that a handful of lawmakers are willing to put the wellbeing of more than 10,000 orphans and foster kids in jeopardy,” said Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality. “Every child in our state deserves a safe home with nurturing parents, and every agency that receives taxpayer dollars has an obligation to place those children in homes with loving parents. That’s all that matters. It’s jarring that in 2017, we’re looking at legislation that is this blatantly anti-family and anti-LGBT.”

The bill’s GOP author, Rep. Bert Reeves, joined child welfare advocates in condemning the discriminatory amendment. Governor Deal made it clear he had no patience for an anti-LGBT amendment: “I certainly don’t want that to happen, and I would hope they would reconsider the addition to this language that could put the whole bill in jeopardy.”

The Metro Atlanta Chamber and Georgia Chamber of Commerce oppose the amendment – and other businesses in are speaking out as well.

“First Data is based in Atlanta and we are proud to call Georgia home. However, we are strongly opposed to HB 159 in its current form, the proposed legislation in Georgia that we believe perpetuates discrimination against the LGBT community,’ said Cindy Armine-Klein, First Datat’s Chief Control Officer. “First Data is committed to fostering an inclusive workplace that promotes fairness and diversity, and the proposed legislation violates our core belief that all Americans deserve to be treated equally and respectfully. We ask that the legislature fix this bill.”

“Once again, we find ourselves at the end of a legislative session where a handful of senators are attempting to rush through a discriminatory bill that our governor, businesses, and so many other stakeholders across this state oppose,” added Graham. “Lawmakers have a responsibility to their constituents, and a responsibility to do what’s best for this state. It’s clear that some lawmakers value anti-LGBT discrimination more than anything else.”

The Georgia Unites coalition is asking supporters to contact their senators to express opposition to the dangerous amendment to HB 159. More information is available here.

CLICK HERE to read the original article at the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

By Kristina Torres and Aaron Gould Sheinin

Gov. Nathan Deal on Monday said he opposes a late Senate effort to add “religious liberty” protections to an unrelated bill dealing with adoptions, a change that could allow private adoption agencies receiving public money to refuse to place children with LGBT families.

The governor’s message could stall the measure in the Legislature’s final days of the 2017 session, and it suggests the bill would face his veto if it passed with the change intact. But, with negotiations over dozens of bills ongoing in the waning days, no bill is dead for sure until the gavel falls on the final day.

“I certainly don’t want that to happen, and I would hope they would reconsider the addition to this language that could put the whole bill in jeopardy,” Deal said.

House Bill 159, a bipartisan bill to modernize Georgia’s adoption laws, was changed late Thursday in the Senate Judiciary Committee to include language that would protect private adoption agencies that receive state money but don’t want to place children with all families.

The move on a 7-4 vote would essentially protect agencies that may have a faith-based mission and do not want to place children with same-sex couples, although it could be applied broadly. All seven votes in favor were from Republican senators; the four voting “no” were Democrats.

Supporters of the change on the committee said it could also apply to an agency with a mission to place children with African-American families, for example.

“It’s just a matter of what options you can provide in the placement of children,” said state Sen. William Ligon, R-Brunswick, who authored the change. “We should do all that we can to ensure those needs are met. It is recognizing the diversity in our culture.”

Others who supported the measure said anyone concerned by the move needed to consider how it could help more children find homes.

“Isn’t it true there are adoption agencies that place children with homosexual families?” asked state Sen. Hunter Hill, R-Smyrna. By not allowing agencies to discern who they want to serve, he said, it meant that “everybody’s just got to be vanilla with no passion.”

State Sen. Greg Kirk, R-Americus, who sponsored a major religious liberty bill last year that Deal eventually vetoed, called it a “big” bill for the chamber to move forward.

Kirk also asked state officials whether they already worked with agencies under similar arrangements. They said no.

Bobby Cagle, the director at the state’s Division of Family and Children Services, said the agency uses state and federal money working with some adoption agencies that have particular specialties, such as those that help place developmentally disabled children. But he said none of the 89 agencies the department works with are allowed to specialize in placing children with families of a single race, for example.

Cagle also said while the department works with agencies that are affiliated with churches, the rules say those agencies cannot discriminate against the religion of the child or purposely weed out those who don’t have the same faith.

The committee’s decision, he added, would endanger “hundreds of millions of dollars” the agency received from the federal government because they appear to violate federal nondiscrimination laws.

Cagle’s office said he was referring to the department’s requirement to comply with the Civil Rights Act to receive federal funds.

The DFCS director handed out a Justice Department memo to Senate Judiciary Committee members before the vote that said the law’s Title VI provision is an “overarching anti-discrimination statute that applies to the programs and activities of all entities receiving federal financial assistance.”

The changes to HB 159 were done over the objections of its sponsor, state Rep. Bert Reeves, R-Marietta, who said he had been notified of them less than two hours before Thursday’s hearing. Reeves on Monday said he was aware of Deal’s comments and said he and the governor “are on the same page.”

Georgia’s top business leaders condemned the Senate’s move.

“We are opposed to the recent changes made to HB 159 that could allow groups receiving state taxpayer dollars to discriminate against other Georgians,” the public policy directors of the Metro Atlanta Chamber and Georgia Chamber of Commerce said in a joint statement.

Democrats on the Judiciary Committee said it’s wrong for public dollars to subsidize discrimination. If an adoption agency enters “into a contract with the government that is taxpayer-funded, they are bound to provide it in a nonsecular fashion,” said state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta.

“It’s inappropriate for your tax dollars to discriminate against you,” she said.

Lost in the fight over the amendment was the need for Reeves’ original version of the bill. The second-term lawmaker has worked for the past two years to modernize the state’s adoption laws. Melissa Carter, the director of the Barton Child Law and Policy Center at Emory University, said Reeves’ bill is needed.

“Over time things get outdated, and it’s time to step back and look at the entirety of the (adoption) code,” Carter said. “As a legal practice, adoption is a highly technical area. Over time it needs to be updated and modernized.”

Carter said she is concerned both that the bill passes as amended and that the entire bill is defeated because of Ligon’s change.

“It’s certainly a possibility that the entire bill could be lost as a casualty of these efforts,” she said.

The bill is now before the Senate Rules Committee, which will decide whether it will get a floor vote. That panel did not add HB 159 to the Senate’s agenda for Wednesday, which is when lawmakers next meet.

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced HB 159, a good adoption bill tarnished by “poison pill” amendments that would allow adoption agencies to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation—as well as race, ethnicity, and religion—all while receiving public funding.

The Senate rushed these amendments through at the 11th hour, in a last ditch effort led by Senators William Ligon, Josh McKoon and Greg Kirk—known proponents of anti-LGBT legislation—to codify a license to discriminate against LGBT people into Georgia’s adoption laws.

Next, the bill will advance to the Senate Rules Committee, and if it passes through that committee as quickly as it did the Judiciary Committee, it could go before the full Senate for a vote as early as the middle of this week.

The final stop for HB 159 would be Governor Nathan Deal’s desk. The Governor announced this morning the he opposes these last-minute, discriminatory amendments, since they could run afoul of federal non-discrimination protections and threaten the Division of Family and Children Services’ ability to access hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of federal government aid.

Right now, there are more than 10,000 young people in Georgia’s adoption and foster care system—a system that’s strapped for resources as it is, without the threat of losing more funding. What’s more, as amended HB 159 puts the lives of some of Georgia’s most vulnerable young people on the line, creating unnecessary and harmful roadblocks to placing these youth in with loving, forever families.

At the end of the day, HB 159 plays politics with children’s lives. As amended, the legislation is costly and discriminatory, and compromises and otherwise “good” adoption bill.

Senators can fix HB 159—but there are only five days left in the legislative calendar for them to do so. Rush a message to your senator right now and urge them to remove all language from HB 159 that allows for state-sanctioned discrimination.

ATLANTA – Leading advocates in the child welfare and LGBT communities will join people of faith tomorrow in speaking out against a discriminatory amendment to HB 159, imperiling the future of the urgently needed legislation to update the state’s adoption laws. The amendment would allow adoption agencies that receive state funding to reject same-sex couples, LGBT people and others – despite the urgent need to place so many children in Georgia in safe and loving homes.

The amendment was added in the Senate Judiciary Committee over the objection of the bill’s sponsor, GOP Rep. Bert Reeves, and child welfare advocates — including the head of the state’s Division of Family and Children Services. Governor Nathan Deal also has called for the discriminatory amendment to be removed from the bill.

WHO: Jeff Graham, Executive Director, Georgia Equality

Representative Stacey Evans

Representative Mary Margaret Oliver

Paula Moody, Director of Child & Youth Permanency, Families First

Kathy Colbenson, President and CEO, Chris 180

WHERE: State Capitol, Senate Press Room, CLOB 203

Atlanta, GA

WHEN: Tuesday, March 21^st 1:30pm

For more information, please contact Billy Linville: blinville@lexiconstrategies.com or 404-432-7242.

Support for LGBT non-discrimination protections in Georgia has hit a major milestone, according to a new poll from Project Right Side (PRS) Foundation, a Republican-leaning think tank that provides research and analysis on LGBT issues.

According to the poll results, nearly 3 in 4 Georgians (74%) support a comprehensive non-discrimination law to protect LGBT people from discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations. In fact, this majority support holds across party affiliation, including 88% of Democrats, 73% of Independents and 63% of Republicans.

The poll also found that an identical majority (74%) think LGBT discrimination is already illegal. Nearly 3 in 4 people told PRS pollsters that it is “already illegal under state law to fire, refuse to hire, deny housing or public accommodations access to these citizens.”

It’s not—in fact, according to a report released earlier this year by Georgia Unites Against Discrimination, Georgia has some of the loosest non-discrimination protections in the country.

Georgia is one of the only states that have no laws barring employment or public accommodations discrimination on the basis of race or religion, and because there are no federal laws explicitly protecting LGBT people from such discrimination, this group is especially vulnerable. In fact, 45% of LGBT Georgians say they have been discriminated against or harassed at work because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

What’s more, just last week the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court ruled against Jameka Evans—a Savannah security guard who was fired from her job because she is a lesbian. The court ruling found that federal civil rights protections don’t apply to LGBT people. This further underscores the need for statewide protections.

This year, Georgia lawmakers introduced several bills to address the problem of LGBT discrimination in our state, including HR 404, which would create a study committee to consider the importance of LGBT protections and give lawmakers a chance to hear stories like Jameka’s as they are deciding where they stand on a state civil rights law.

Lawmakers have two weeks to advance HR 404 before the 2017 legislative session ends. With momentum and support for passing statewide non-discrimination protections at an all time high, lawmakers should seize this opportunity.

CLICK HERE to read the full article on Atlanta Business Chronicle.

By Maria Saporta

Nearly three out of four Georgians support passing a state law to protect gay and transgender people in the areas of employment, housing and public accommodations, according to a survey conducted by the Just Win Foundation.

But the same survey shows that an equal percentage of Georgians think it’s already illegal under state law to fire, refuse to hire, deny housing or public accommodations access to a person who is gay or transgender.

“We were very pleased when we saw the results of this poll,” said Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, an organization which aims to advance fairness, safety and opportunity for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.

“But three-quarters (74 percent) of the state’s population believes we are already covered by federal legislation, and we’re not,” Graham added. “We have to do some education about the civil rights law in Georgia.”

Currently, there are bills moving through General Assembly to have a complete civil rights bill in Georgia.

“We have got a comprehensive and inclusive civil rights bill in both the Senate and the House,” Graham said. It’s comprehensive because it includes housing, public accommodations and employment. And it’s inclusive because it includes race, national origin, sex, religion, age and disability as well as sexual identity and gender identity (which are not part of federal protections).

There also is a proposed bi-partisan resolution that is calling for a study committee to thoroughly research a comprehensive civil rights law Georgia, an idea that Graham also embraced.

“A study committee would be of interest to us,” he said. “It would give us a formal structure where we could have hearings. This is the beginning of a new discussion in Georgia. It may take a couple of years to build the political will so that people can understand what these bills do and what they don’t do to bring comprehensive and inclusive civil rights to Georgia.

Georgia, the home of the civil rights movement, has among the weakest civil rights laws in the country, a fact that Graham hopes will change in the near future.

The survey by the Just Win Foundation shows that Georgians are supportive of the state being more inclusive to all segments of the population. For a full look at the survey, click here.

The Just Win Foundation recently shared the findings of its survey to Georgia Equality. It surveyed 600 likely voters during mid-December, and the survey has a margin of error of 4 percent. Seventy percent of the interviews were with people who had a landline while 30 percent were reached through mobile phones.

Last Friday the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Jameka Evans, a Savannah security guard who was fired for being lesbian.

Lambda Legal represents Evans and argued that she should be protected from discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.

The court dismissed these claims. Now, Lambda Legal plans to seek a rehearing by a full panel of Eleventh Circuit judges.

Jameka’s case points to an unfortunate reality: In Georgia, LGBT people can be fired, evicted, and denied service—just because of who they are—and under state law they have no legal recourse.

What’s more, federal non-discrimination laws are patchy at best. And, in Jameka’s case, they simply are not enough.

This is why statewide civil rights laws are needed in Georgia. Right now, Georgia is one of only five states with absolutely no non-discrimination protections at the state level, according to a recent report Liberty and Justice in Georgia.

Joe Whitley, a Bush- and Reagan-era attorney and a contributor to the Liberty and Justice report, penned an op-ed last week pushing for statewide LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination protections: “The gap in Georgia laws does not reflect our values. Further, it does not align with the many other steps Georgia has taken in recent years to ensure our economy stays as strong and innovative as possible.”

This year, lawmakers took important first steps to addressing the problem of LGBT discrimination in Georgia with the introduction of several non-discrimination bills. And right now, there is still time to advance HR 404—legislation that seeks to create a study committee to investigate the need for laws to protect LGBT Georgians from discrimination in housing, employment, and public places.

This is just the beginning of an important and ongoing conversation about ensuring LGBT people have fair and equal opportunity to work, find housing, and participate fully in public life. And a study committee would go a long way to building momentum for the passage of comprehensive and inclusive non-discrimination laws—and toward ensuring no one has to experience the kind of discrimination that Jameka faced at work.