ATLANTA — It’s the final day of the legislative session and lawmakers are scrambling to try and get their bills passed.
Gov. Brian Kemp signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, on Friday morning despite Democratic criticisms.
The bill stirred up a lot of debate on both sides, with supporters insisting the bill was needed to protect people of faith from what they call “unwarranted government intrusion.
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But critics like Duluth Democrat Ruwa Romman believe that without an underlying civil rights law, which Georgia doesn’t have, all this does is give people license to discriminate against people or lifestyles they don’t like.
“Because at the end of the day, those who will bear the brunt of this are not those in the majority. It’ll be us, people in the religious minority,” Romman
Kemp disagreed.
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“I just don’t buy that, you know. I don’t buy that. I don’t think we’ve seen that in other states, and I think our record speaks for itself here in Georgia,” Kemp said.
Meanwhile, the Senate passed two bills on school zone safety cameras that contradict each other.
It passed a bill that abolishes all of those cameras in three years and minutes later, voted to pass a bill that keeps the cameras but simply unifies the state regulations governing them.
It’ll be up to the House to decide which one it likes best.
Hartwell Republican Alan Powell thinks it’s his.
“You’ve got two distinct choices. One to make a tool, the other to ban it,” Powell said.
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©2025 Cox Media Group. The Associated Press contributed to the report.
