A sweeping religious freedom bill in Georgia would permit all manner of discrimination and abuse in the name of religious liberty.

The bill, the “Georgia Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” would allow people to use their sincerely held religious beliefs to challenge or opt out of laws that protect LGBT people and other minorities from discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations.

In fact, legal scholars have said that the law would protect spousal and child abusers from criminal prosecution as long as the abuser could show a religious justification for the abuse.

Such justification is easy to provide: the Christian Domestic Discipline Network, for example, offers a host of rationales for “wife spanking;” while Proverbs 13:24: “He who spares his rod hates his son – But he who loves him disciplines him diligently” is already a standard go-to for religious parents attempting to justify the abuse of their children.

The Daily Beast reports the legislation would have disastrous consequences:

Restaurants could refuse to serve gay or interracial couples, city clerks could refuse to marry interfaith couples, hotels could keep out Jews, housing developments could keep out black people (Genesis 9:18-27), pharmacies could refuse to dispense birth control, banquet halls could turn away gay weddings, schools could specifically allow anti-gay bullying, and employers could fire anyone for any “religious” reason.

About the legislation in Georgia and similar bills across the country, Louise Melling, ACLU deputy legal director, said:

Free exercise to religion gives us a right to our beliefs, but it doesn’t give us the right to harm others, doesn’t give us the right to impose our views on others, it doesn’t give us the right to discriminate.

The legislation in Georgia is being opposed by a wide coalition of reasonable and fair minded citizens. In fact, last February, former Georgia Attorney General Mike Bowers, a lifelong conservative, called the legislation nothing more than an “unequivocal excuse to discriminate.”

Earlier today, March 17, hundreds of fair-minded Georgians gathered at the State Capitol to stand in opposition to the legislation.

Currently there is a fierce legislative anti-gay backlash in parts of the U.S. as conservative Christians respond to the sweeping success of marriage equality.

Across the country conservative Christians are introducing legislation to provide legal protection to people who wish to discriminate against others based on their “sincerely held religious beliefs.”

In essence, Christian Republicans are trying to make it easier for businesses and individuals to opt out of serving gay couples on religious grounds, effectively offering bigots a license to discriminate.

However, Georgia’s religious freedom legislation is by far the most dramatic and far reaching in the country. In the words of former Georgia Attorney General Mike Bowers, the law “would permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.”

Bottom line: Religion should never be a legal justification for discrimination or abuse.

(H/T The Daily Beast)