Georgia’s got some really good ideas about how to accentuate the level of hypocrisy in the concept of religious freedom. Back in 1990, Georgia’s Supreme Court reinstated the ban on wearing Klu Klux Klan masks.
The 6-to-1 decision overturned a lower court ruling that struck down the state's 39-year-old anti-mask law last May. In that ruling, Judge Howard E. Cook of Gwinnett County State Court called the Klan "a persecuted group" whose members' First Amendment rights to free speech might depend on anonymity. He upheld a challenge to the law by Shade Miller Jr., a member of the Invisible Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
But the Georgia Supreme Court held today that the law does not infringe on the Klan's rights to free speech and free association and that instead the Klan's history of anonymous violence makes the mask a form of intimidation subject to government control.
"The state interests furthered by the Anti-Mask Act lie at the very heart of the realm of legitimate governmental activity," Chief Justice Harold G. Clarke wrote for the majority. Klan Says Ruling Is Narrow
But now Republican state Rep. Jason Spencer wants to extend the Anti-Mask Act to include a group not known for historically lynching and burning and murdering United States citizens on United States soil.
House Bill 3, authored by state Rep. Jason Spencer, R-Woodbine, would bar women from wearing a burqa and veil when posing for the photo on their Georgia drivers’ license. The bill would also subject female Muslim garb to the state’s anti-masking statute – which originally was aimed at the Ku Klux Klan.
Spencer said his legislation was intended to apply to women who are driving on public roads, but the wording suggests the restriction might also apply to any kind of public property.
Emphasis added. Here’s House Bill 3. The bolded parts are the changes to the original language.
A person is guilty of a misdemeanor when he or she wears a mask, hood, or device by which any portion of the face is so hidden, concealed, or covered as to conceal the identity of the wearer and is upon any public way or public property or upon the private property of another without the written permission of the owner or occupier of the property to do so. For purposes of this subsection, the phrase 'upon any public way or property' includes but is not limited to operating a motor vehicle upon any public street, road, or highway.
Don’t worry, there’s a provision for wearing a Santa Claus suit and beard for when Jesus Christ was born.