October 1, 2026
This was my 19th year working at the Georgia Capitol on legislation dealing with social and moral issues. It was my 13th year with the Georgia Baptist Mission Board. This year was very busy, with a lot of new legislation and a lot of changes to current legislation in the final days. More than 2,000 bills were submitted through the two-year cycle.
As usual, Georgia Baptists were monitoring a lot of legislation in the second-year cycle that started in 2025. We monitored up to 47 bills and out of these we were supporting 32 and opposing 15. Most of them dealt with subjects such as pro-life, religious freedom, child protection, gambling, alcohol, marijuana, and hemp.
We also monitored around 15-20 bills after the 2026 crossover day. Many of these bills were getting changed, and some did not get voted on by the last day of the session.
Some of the bills that we supported and some that we opposed were added to other legislation in committee or on the floor in one of the chambers. There were times when it got confusing as to where these bills were in the legislative process!
So, with that in mind, I want to give you a summary of a few of the bills we monitored through the 2026 legislative session. See this link for a total list: https://gabaptist.org/resource/georgia-baptist-top-legislation-being-watched-4-6-26/
Even in the midst of contention, there were a number of bills that did get passed and some that were stopped. I want to give you some information on them.
We are thankful for the passage in the "Baby Box Bill" (HB 350), in the last hour of the 40th day of the legislative session in the House! Georgia Baptists are grateful to stand with Rep. Mike Cameron, who has been working on this bill for two legislative sessions.
This bill allows a baby to be given up to a legal public facility, such as a hospital, police station, fire department, etc. The new law will allow a safety device (“baby box”) to be placed at that location where a newborn baby could be placed, provided that the newborn child is no more than 45 days old. This law adds another dimension to “Georgia’s Safe Haven” law that is already in existence.
When this bill passed the Senate Health Committee, it was named after a granddaughter, “Eliza Jane Warner,” who was left to die in a container on the side of the road. The grandmother, Jill Patterson, delivered very moving testimony to the committee. We are thankful this bill will help save and preserve lives in some of the most difficult circumstances!
Georgia Baptists were thankful to stand with Sen. Ben Watson in support of the “True Patriotism and Universal Student Access (TPUSA) Act”, SB 552. It passed out of the House Judiciary with Rep. Rob Leverett filling in for Sen. Watson with a favorable substitute. It made it through to the House for a successful floor vote and on to the Senate for an agreement. It now goes to the Governor’s desk for a passage into law.
This bill expands and protects students' free speech and assembly rights in public schools. The bill aims to ensure students have equal access to express political or philosophical views. It was inspired by the work of the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated on September 10, 2025.
Standing with Sen. Steve Gooch was important for Georgia Baptists on this very meaningful legislation. SB 591, "Protecting Churches and Services from Disruption," passed the Senate and moved through the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee and passed the House. It has now gone to the Governor’s desk to be put into law for Georgia.
The bill defines "religious service" and prohibits specific threatening or aggressive imagery within 500 feet of the site. These are time, place, and manner restrictions aimed at preventing intentional interference with the orderly conduct of services, not at limiting the content of speech.
This is to be added to the same code section related to interfering with funerals or memorial services. The bill protects religious freedom and ensures that worshipers are shielded from harassment or protestors storming a service.
As Georgia Baptists, we were monitoring at least 21 bills intended to protect children here in Georgia. I want to highlight a few of these bills.
SB 74 was sponsored by Sen. Max Burns, and the bill aimed to remove all public libraries operated by the State of Georgia or its political subdivisions, as well as all school, college, and university libraries from exemptions regarding laws regulating access to obscene materials by minors. That’s the good news. But the bad news is that while it passed the Senate last year, it did not pass the House this year. The bill passed the House Non-Civil Committee this year and was moved to the House Rules Committee, but never made it to the floor for a vote.
This has been an issue we have faced in Georgia since 1984, when libraries were exempted from the obscenity law protecting minors.
If enacted, SB 74 would have reduced the presence of explicit sexual material in children’s sections of libraries. At present, many libraries contain books with graphic or highly descriptive sexual material. Parents need to be energized to challenge an inappropriately considered book
Since parents can legally drop their children off at the library by age 11 or 12 (depending on the county), they should not have to worry about their children encountering obscene material in their section of the library. If the child cannot be trusted to stay in the children's or teenage sections, then the parent needs to supervise that child. Under this law, the library will need to consider books by age-appropriateness.
This bill would have provided cohesive, statewide protection for our greatest responsibility: our children. Most people in Georgia do not know that the libraries in Georgia are exempt from being charged with providing obscene material to minors. Yet, a person who gave that same material to a child in public would be charged criminally!
This kind of legislation has been attempted for a number of years, and yet, it still has not passed. We must continue to work as hard as we can to protect our most vulnerable citizens.
We were glad to see “Trey’s Law” passed on the last day of the legislative session. Georgia Baptists supported this bill, HB 1187 and it was sponsored by Rep. Soo Hong and carried in the Senate by Kay Kirkpatrick. It passed the Senate 50 to 0! It now goes to the Governor’s desk and to be signed into law. It was also legislation that First Lady Marty Kemp had made a priority and was promoting.
The purpose of this law is to ensure that survivors can speak openly about the abuse they suffered through child sex abuse and human trafficking. It will help expose abusers and negligent institutions and prevent harmful secrecy in future cases. It stops a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) from keeping a victim from speaking out.
The bill is named after a child, Trey Carlock, who was abused in a camp in Missouri. A lawsuit that was settled against the camp included a non-disclosure agreement that prevented him from speaking out regarding his abuse. His family believes that the restrictive NDA contributed to his committing suicide in 2019.
HB 1193, “The Georgia Early Literacy Act,” was supported by Georgia Baptists and sponsored by Rep. Chris Erwin and carried by Sen. Blake Tillery in the Senate. It is a major legislative initiative to address reading proficiency among Georgia's youngest students. This bill aims to ensure every child can read at grade level by the end of third grade.
One of the major parts of the bill provides state funding to place at least one literacy coach in every Georgia elementary school serving grades K-3. This is so important because statistics show that as many as a third of third-graders in Georgia are reading below grade level.
This aligns with Mission Georgia and our Read Georgia program. The program is designed for churches to partner with local schools to work one-on-one with third-grade children to develop their literacy skills. Link: Read Georgia - Mission Georgia
Georgia Baptists were monitoring at least seven bills dealing with some form of minor child protection policy related to the internet. HB 540, sponsored by Senator Jason Anavitarte, was one of the pieces of legislation that passed.
This legislation focused on conversational AI services to protect users, particularly minors, from the psychological and safety risks specifically related to "AI companion chatbots." Operators must clearly state when a user is interacting with AI rather than a human. For minors, this disclosure must occur every hour.
It also prohibits AI services from claiming sentience, simulating emotional dependence, or engaging in romantic/sexual innuendo with minors. There are also age verification methods given in the legislation. And the bill requires operators to provide tools for parents or guardians to manage a minor's privacy and account settings.
Georgia Baptists were monitoring seven bills dealing with gambling, primarily opposing those seeking to legalize sports betting and casinos. One bill we supported, which would outlaw cock fighting in Georgia, SB 102, passed the Senate last year, but did not get moved in the House this year.
One of the BIGGEST accomplishments this year during the legislative session was the voting down of the Sports Betting Amendment! That’s right, HR 450 was slam-dunked in the House on crossover day! It was voted down by a vote of 98 against it and only 63 for it.
HR 450 was originally sponsored by Rep. Marcus Wiedower. It would have allowed for a Constitutional Amendment to be put on the ballot for the next election to provide a legal means for sports betting.
We have been dealing with this kind of legislation since 2020. There have been votes in the Senate, but not till now in the House. It was a major win for Georgia that the greatest addictive gambling in the country was stopped in the House by both Democrats and Republicans.
For 15 years or more Georgia Baptist have been opposing any expansion of gambling, whether it be horse racing, casinos or sports betting. At the 2025 Georgia Baptist Convention, we passed another resolution opposing gambling expansion: 2025 RESOLUTIONS REPORT_APPROVED
Along with gambling, Georgia Baptists have always opposed any expansion of alcohol sales. Our latest resolution dealing with alcohol was passed by the Georgia Baptist Convention in 2022. See the resolution here: https://gabaptist.egnyte.com/dl/V8ZfqlFdgb
We opposed five separate bills on this issue, and are thankful that no legislation to expand the legalization of alcohol made it to the final day. Since the legislative cycle began in 2024, we have opposed legislation that has ranged from allowing discounted sales of alcoholic beverages, accepting exemptions to the three-tier system related to craft breweries, and allowing private production of distilled spirits.
In addition to opposing alcohol sales expansion, Georgia Baptists are concerned about the increase of accessibility and use of marijuana and hemp products. During the 2025 Georgia Baptist Convention, we passed a resolution entitled: “Restricting Marijuana and Hemp Products”: 2025 RESOLUTIONS REPORT_APPROVED
This year we monitored at least seven bills dealing with this subject. We supported three, and we opposed four.
The bills we supported primarily dealt with closing the Delta THC loopholes in the use of hemp products and beverages. Two of the three bills we were supporting ended up being amended a number of times in House committee hearings (SB 33 and SB 254). Before the session was over, both of those bills were substituted with legislation that had nothing to do with the original subjects in the bills.
The bills we opposed were all stopped, except one. The ones that were stopped had to do with the legalization of recreational marijuana (HB 1248), the loosening of legal restrictions (HB 496), and allowing hemp beverages to be sold in liquor stores (HB 89).
The one bill that passed was SB 220, “The Putting Georgia’s Patients First Act,” which was sponsored by Sen. Matt Brass. It renames "low THC oil" to "medical cannabis" throughout the state legal code and renames the registry to the "Medical Cannabis Patient Registry." It also adds lupus to the list of conditions eligible for a medical cannabis registration card. There is a replacement of the 5% THC concentration cap with a total possession limit of 12,000 milligrams of THC. It also permits vaping as a delivery method for patients aged 21 and older.
While there are additional regulations added to the law through this legislation, it is still an expansion of marijuana use. If allowed to go into law, it will expand and strengthen access to high-potency THC products in Georgia.
SB 542 was sponsored by Senator Randy Robertson. This very important piece of legislation was passed by both chambers, and it closes a legal loophole regarding sexual misconduct by religious leaders. It would permit criminal charges against clergy who engage in sexual conduct or sexually explicit conduct with individuals under their pastoral counseling or spiritual authority.
Georgia Baptists supported SB 542 and were thankful to Sen. Robertson for authoring this bill. We agree with adding clergy to this section of the law.
Georgia Baptists have supported legislation such as the 2015 Hidden Predator Act and the 2018 Hidden Predator Act that included civil suits even against churches.
One of my areas of ministry with Georgia Baptist has to do with child protection policy. While my main area deals with sex abuse related to minors, we condemn the sexual abuse of adults as well.
We do believe that this legislation is needed in order to educate those in our churches and institutions regarding the responsibility of maintaining protection over both minors and adults related to sex abuse.
This bill can be used as an educational tool to remind people of the responsibility that they have to protect others. Accountability and criminal charges need to be a part of our laws regarding all sex abuse. Therefore, even consent to inappropriate sexual activity should never be used as an exemption or an excuse for sex abuse charges in our churches and institutions.
As we wrap up, I want to remind you that all legislation passed by the legislature that is not a constitutional amendment can be vetoed by the governor, signed into law by him, or allowed to become law without his signature. So, the full assessment of this legislation will not be known until 40 days after the legislative session.
There has been a lot of legislation to monitor over the past two years. Once again, as Georgia Baptists, we have been privileged to support more legislation that passed than what we were against.
Please consider making plans to attend one of our ten Public Affairs Trainings this year. Please check out the following link to find out the locations and subjects to be taught: Public Affairs Training 2026 - Georgia Baptist Mission Board
As you can see, there was a lot going on at the Capitol during this legislative session. This is always so. Thank you so much for all your prayers and support as the Georgia Baptist Public Affairs Ministry worked on public policy for the cause of Christ.
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Mike Griffin is the Public Affairs Representative of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board.
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