Economy
How a Bid for Amazon HQ2 Got Tangled Up in a Fight for LGBTQ Rights
Georgia’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act has been stalled for four years amid fears it will deter economic investment. Will Amazon finally kill it?
Cities competing to lure Amazon’s second headquarters have presented an array of economic incentives. But the competition may be eliciting at least one state to reconsider how its policies affect LGBTQ residents, too.
Georgia has been fighting for four years to pass a religious freedom law, modeled after other states’ Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRA). LGBTQ advocates warn that these laws could be used for “state-sanctioned discrimination,” empowering vendors to refuse employment or deny services to LGBTQ individuals, such as refusing to provide a cake for a same-sex wedding. The 2016 version of Georgia’s bill explicitly permitted pastors to refuse to perform same-sex marriages.