On November 2, 2004, Georgia voters approved Constitutional Amendment 1, which made it unconstitutional for the state to recognize or perform same-sex marriages or civil unions.

[4] On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that the fundamental right to marry must be guaranteed to same-sex couples.

[21] The cities of Atlanta,[22] Clarkston[23] and Doraville[24] have ordinances prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in both public and private employment.

Gwinnett County has a Human Relations Commission that ensures fair and equal treatment and opportunity for all persons, with protections including gender identity and sexual orientation.

The cities of Athens,[28] Augusta,[29] Avondale Estates,[30] Columbus,[31] Decatur,[32] Macon,[33] Pine Lake[34] and Savannah[35] have ordinances banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in public employment, while the cities of East Point,[36] Sandy Springs,[37] and Tybee Island,[36] as well as the counties of DeKalb[36] and Fulton[38] have similar anti–discrimination ordinances in public employment covering only sexual orientation.

The Court of Appeals found the Georgia General Assembly had discriminated against Vandy Beth Glenn, a transgender woman who was fired from her job as legislative editor after telling her supervisor that she planned to transition from male to female.

[45] Both sexual orientation and gender identity are explicitly covered under the U.S. federal hate crime law since Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr.

Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law in October 2009 by Barack Obama - right after being passed (as an attachment to a military funding authorisation bill) by US Congress.

“In fact, this ordinance takes away the business owners' freedom to practice religion, and instead coerces many Christian and Jewish faith-based people in our county to accept the LGBTQ lifestyle as one of their moral beliefs,” said former mayoral candidate Blake Sullivan.

[50] In April 2022, a bill passed the Georgia General Assembly "at the last minute" to legally ban transgender individuals within female sports, athletics and/or Olympics teams.

[51][52][53] In August 2020, a Georgia federal judge in Atlanta granted a daughter of two American married same-sex fathers US citizenship, despite being born in England to a surrogate.

[59] A 2017 Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll found that 52% of Georgia residents supported same-sex marriage, while 39% opposed it and 10% were unsure.