Over the decades, the Georgia General Assembly -- the House, the Senate or both -- has approved goodness knows how many ceremonial resolutions praising a person or group, celebrating an event, designating state symbols and otherwise using the legislative process to have a little fun and to score political points. The process is not limited to Georgia and other states. The Congressional Record contains many examples of federal legislators doing the same thing. Sometimes, though, the time-honored practice turns nasty. It did in Atlanta on Monday.
That's when the GOP-controlled House soundly rejected a ceremonial resolution by Democratic Rep. Keisha Waites, of Atlanta, to honor Young Democrats at the University of Georgia for registering voters and volunteering on political campaigns. The resolution also praised the Lambda Alliance and Ally Outreach, which support gay rights. The former sponsors National Coming Out Day and a semiannual drag show. That caught legislators' attention.
Generally, ceremonial resolutions such as Waites' are unanimously passed in batches with no debate and little or no scrutiny by legislators. Not this time. Republicans, led by House Majority Leader Larry O'Neal, noticed its content, pulled it from the batch and called for a vote on it alone. It was defeated 104-32.
O'Neal said he opposed the bill because of its political content, not because it praised groups supportive of gay rights. That's doublespeak at its worst. Republicans, admit it or not, torpedoed Waites' bill because it praised Democrats and members and supporters of the gay community. Claims to the contrary are bogus.
O'Neal is a member of a state party that opposes gay rights. Each of the Georgia GOP's top candidates for governor in 2010, for example, vigorously proclaimed opposition to gay marriage. The party's dismal record on gay issues is powerful testimony to its lack of inclusiveness.
If members of the legislature can approve resolutions as it has done recently to praise a middle school art class, a student who raised money for charity and a county choir, without resorting to political or social analysis, it can honor the work of collegians who voluntarily engage in the important work of getting out the vote. If legislators can take valuable time to pass essentially meaningless resolutions designating a state beef cook off ("Shoot the Bull") and a state pork cook off ("Slosheye Trail Big Pig Jig"), they should willingly support a resolution to honor collegians courageous enough to stand up for an oft-persecuted minority.
Principle and fairness, though, don't seem to matter to most members of the GOP-controlled Georgia House. The petty vindictiveness displayed Monday by the partisan majority there reflects biases that debase those who hold them and that ill-serve the constituents and state they purport to serve.