Q Toon: Deal Or No Deal?

As a cartoonist, I love sitting down to my drawing board when I have a subject who is ripe for caricature.

No, I don't mean Georgia Governor Nathan Deal. He's got a face like a bowl of grits.

I'll probably never have another reason to draw Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, but his face has all the definition a caricaturist could ever want. If Hollywood wanted to cast someone to play the president, generalissimo, or financier of Greece, Italy, or a Latin American country circa 1972, his face would be perfect.

In case you haven't been following Georgia politics lately, the state legislature has passed what they call a "Free Exercise Protection Act," which doesn't do anything to ensure the safety of weight lifters and joggers. Rather, it purports to protect discrimination against same-sex couples by anyone who professes "sincerely held religious beliefs" as the basis for denying housing, employment, or other services to people they don't like.

Blank's Atlanta Falcons have been pushing for a new football stadium in the hopes of hosting the Superbowl soon after it is finished, but now the NFL has announced that the league will not site any Superbowl in the state of Georgia if Deal signs the Free Exercise Protection Act into law.

Considering that, Blank, not surprisingly, opposes the Georgia bill.

"I strongly believe a diverse, inclusive and welcoming Georgia is critical to our citizens and the millions of visitors coming to enjoy all that our great state has to offer,” Blank said in a statement. “House Bill 757 undermines these principles and would have long-lasting negative impact on our state and the people of Georgia."

Disney, film production companies, tech firms, and even Coca-Cola — Coca-Cola! — have also threatened to pull out of the state over FEPA.

Governor Deal has until May 3 to decide whether sincerely held religious beliefs are trumped by sincerely held economic ones.