The Walking Dead has helped stop an Anti-LGTBQ law in Georgia by threatening to walk right out of the state. Georgia’s legislature passed a bill that would allow faith-based organizations to discriminate against gay, lesbian and transgender people. But the governor refused to sign the bill after The Walking Dead, Disney, Marvel, and many other corporations and businesses all threatened to stop operating in the state.

 

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The law is troubling because of the lack of a definition for “faith-based organizations.” Under the bill, legal discrimination could range from a church refusing to marry a same sex couple or a connivence store with a cross on the wall refusing to sell to any transgender individuals.

 

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As the Washington Post notes, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal (R) made a powerful statement when he refused to sign the bill, “As I’ve said before, I do not think we have to discriminate against anyone to protect the faith based community in Georgia of which my family and I are a part of for all of our lives. Our actions on HB 757 are not just about protecting the faith-based community or providing a business-friendly climate for job growth in Georgia. This is about the character of our State and the character of its people….”

 

 

As CBC writes, many giant corporations also joined the fight, “‘Our corporate economies are bigger than the economies of some countries,’ Beth Brooke Marciniac of Ernst and Young told the Davos forum, ‘and I think we understand both the obligation and the importance of speaking out.’ The message to Georgia was simple, says Marciniac: ‘you pass that bill and we will leave your state.'”

 

The fight isn’t over yet, but big business, Hollywood, and the LGBTQ community have come together to protect the rights of a marginalized group and that’s a victory in and of itself.

 

 

Filed under: AMC, The Walking Dead