After Muslim backlash, lawmaker drops change to no-mask law
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SAVANNAH -- Advocates accused a Georgia lawmaker of targeting Muslim women with proposed changes to a 1951 state law passed to unmasked the Ku Klux Klan, creating a backlash that prompted the Republican legislator to quickly discard the idea.
State Rep. Jason Spencer came under fire from the American Civil Liberties Union and Muslim advocacy groups who called his proposal a veiled attempt to ban Muslim women from wearing scarves and other religious headgear that covers their faces in public -- just as the law has prohibited Klan members from wearing masks during rallies and marches on public property.
"It is a naked and despicable attempt to exploit the current wave of anti-Muslim sentiment by targeting Muslim women," Heather Weaver, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, said Thursday.
