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As blue states continue to try to force Christians to adhere to secular doctrine under the guise of the “neutrality” principle, Georgia’s adoption of its own RFRA is a reminder that government will either protect religious beliefs — or persecute it.
Georgia recently joined 29 other states in enacting a state version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Gov. Brian Kemp, R, signed Senate Bill 36 into law in early April after it passed both chambers of the legislature.
The new law prevents the state government or any of its political subdivisions from placing substantial burdens on a person’s religious practice unless it can be shown that such action serves a compelling government interest and uses the least restrictive means available. The statute defines “exercise of religion” broadly, covering many practices protected under the Georgia Constitution and the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
The law also gives individuals the right to sue if they believe their religious freedoms have been infringed upon. Government entities such as agencies and public officials are all subject to these provisions.
“Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability,” the law’s text states.
The government may “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person is either “in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest” or “the least restrictive means of furthering such compelling governmental interest.”
Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal advocacy group focused on religious liberty, praised the bill’s passage.
“Our laws should protect the freedom of every person to live and worship according to their faith. This law provides a sensible balancing test for courts to use when reviewing government policies that infringe upon the religious freedom rights of Georgians,” ADF Senior Counsel Greg Chafuen wrote.
“The law, which is similar to laws in 29 other states, doesn’t determine who will win every disagreement, but it does ensure that every person—regardless of their religious creed or political power—receives a fair hearing when government action burdens a person’s freedom to live out his or her religious beliefs,” he added.
Senior Counsel Greg Chafuen also noted that the law provides necessary protections, offering courts a fair framework to assess claims when religious freedoms conflict with government policy. He said this law does not predetermine the outcome of disputes but ensures fair consideration for all parties involved.
Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “We commend Georgia legislators for enacting the state’s Religious Freedom and Restoration Act. State RFRA laws protect people of faith from spurious lawsuits brought by those who disagree with their religious expression and from government attempts to punish religious conduct. Every remaining state without a RFRA law should follow suit and codify religious freedom protections from state overreach.”
Adopting a state-level RFRA adds a critical layer of protection for religious liberty, reinforcing the First Amendment’s guarantees, according to the America First Policy Institute. In light of key Supreme Court decisions — namely Employment Division v. Smith (1990) and City of Boerne v. Flores (1997) — which narrowed federal safeguards for religious exercise, a need remains for individual states to take the initiative by embedding such protections into their legal frameworks.
The 1990 Smith decision marked a significant departure from earlier rulings by rejecting the strict scrutiny standard previously applied in Sherbert v. Verner (1963) and limiting its reach, as seen in Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972). These rulings required the government to prove a compelling interest, using the least restrictive means, before infringing on religious practices, a high bar that Smith effectively lowered.
Given this shift in federal jurisprudence, states that pass their own RFRA can uphold a higher standard, legal observers say, as they can require their own public officials to demonstrate a compelling interest and employ the least restrictive approach before imposing any substantial burden on religious activity.
With this legislation, Georgia joins a list of states that includes Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming, all of which have adopted similar laws aimed at safeguarding religious rights.
The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that the right to the free exercise of religion, like all other natural rights, is granted by God, not by government. That right was later codified in the First Amendment.
Unfortunately, a series of Supreme Court decisions starting in the early 1960s have slowly chipped away at the standard that once required the government to justify any burden placed on religious exercise, especially if it forced a citizen to choose between following the law and adhering to their most deeply held beliefs.
The breaking point was the aforementioned 1990 case of Employment Commission v. Smith, in which the Supreme Court took an unprecedentedly narrow view of the Free Exercise Clause, effectively saying that religious Americans had to follow the same “neutral, generally applicable laws” as anyone else, even if it violated their religious faith.
The ruling caused a firestorm of controversy and consternation. In response, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 to try to fix what the Supreme Court had effectively broken.
The new law used Congress’s established power under the Constitution to enforce the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment at both the federal and state levels, restoring strict scrutiny (the highest standard of judicial review) when balancing state interests and constitutional rights, in this case the right to religious liberty.
The Supreme Court, unfortunately, again saw it differently. In 1997, the Court, in a 6-3 decision, struck down the RFRA as it applied to the states in the case of City of Boerne v. Flores, ruling essentially, and many believe wrongly, that Congress had violated the Separation of Powers clause and did not have the Section 5 enforcement power under the 14th Amendment to prevent religious liberty violations at the state level, only to remediate them after the fact.
Left to their own devices when it comes to religious freedom, states have generally gone one of two routes: 1) Pass their own version of the RFRA, as Georgia has now done; or 2) embrace the neutrality principle and elevate “secularism” as the only “neutral” belief.
The latter approach has led to the passage of so-called “non-discrimination laws” that in practice end up discriminating against, most notably, Christians who don’t adhere to secular doctrine on abortion, LGBTQ ideology, and climate change, among other issues.
How does that play out in practice? Just consider Colorado, which gave rise to the famous case of Christian baker Jack Phillips. Phillips was sued by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission under Colorado’s anti-discrimination law for refusing to first bake a cake for a homosexual wedding and later refusing to bake a cake celebrating a gender transition because to do so would have violated his religious beliefs on marriage and sexuality. The legal harassment continued even after he won his case at the Supreme Court in 2018.
Seeing how Phillips was treated, Web designer Lorie Smith preemptively filed suit against Colorado’s law because she wanted to design wedding sites for only heterosexual marriages but didn’t want to run afoul of the state and get fined into bankruptcy. This eventually led to the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis, which found that laws forcing artists to express a state-mandated message violate the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause.
Thanks to the 303 Creative ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court finally dismissed its second case against Phillips following more than a decade of legal battles.
Other Christians in other states have faced, and continue to face, similar persecutions, losing their careers and their businesses, simply for obeying and practicing the precepts of their faith.
By contrast, Georgia’s RFRA restores the First Amendment’s right to religious freedom to all of its residents, preventing government entities from infringing on an individual’s religious exercise unless they can prove that doing so is necessary to achieve a compelling state interest and that no less restrictive alternative is available. The bill’s structure closely aligns with the federal RFRA and reflects similar laws across several neighboring states.
The result is that, unlike in Colorado, Washington, Massachusetts, California, Connecticut, and other blue states, Georgia will now protect all believers who seek to honor God in every area of their lives, from worship and prayer to business practices and family decisions.
In a culture increasingly hostile to biblical values, laws like this create a vital safeguard, ensuring that Christians are not forced to choose between obeying God and obeying man (Acts 5:29).
Georgia’s decision will hopefully convey to other states that religious liberty is worth defending. And it challenges Christians everywhere to be vigilant and to stand for their God-given constitutional rights to worship freely. As Jesus taught in Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.”
When believers stand for righteousness in church and the public square, they bring glory to God. Georgia’s RFRA is a reminder that freedom, especially religious freedom, is a gift worth protecting.
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