The Walking Dead is taking on a new Governor, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal. AMC has put a halt to the filming of The Walking Dead in Georgia, at least for now. AMC’s The Walking Dead films mainly in Georgia, but has now joined Marvel and Disney in taking a stand against Georgia’s controversial religious-liberty bill. The companies are saying that if the bill goes through, they won’t be doing business or filming in the Peach State and that will take away a big chunk of the state’s tourism income, as well as income from production and staffing.
In a statement to the Los Angeles Times AMC said, “As a company, AMC Networks believes that discrimination of any kind is reprehensible. We applaud Governor Deal’s leadership in resisting a previous version of this divisive legislation and urge him to reject the current version as well.”
The bill, introduced by Senator Josh McKoon, passed by legislators last week. If not shot down by Deal, the bill would “protect” religious officials from having to perform same-sex marriages(which is unnecessary as they cannot be legally obligated to do so anyway), would allow faith-based companies to deny employment and services to anyone who violate their religious beliefs, and also to allow religious organizations to deny insurance coverage of birth control to their employees. It would allow blatant discrimination of anyone that a business does not approve of because of religious reasons, mainly the LGBT community, but could be used to discriminate against ANYONE. Have a tattoo? Are you of a different religion? See where I’m going with this? It’s a horrible idea and disgraceful attempt to legalize discrimination in today’s society. I sincerely hope, as a resident of Georgia myself, that Governor Deal is listening and does the right thing, shooting this bill down.
Governor Nathan Deal
