Update: The State Senate will meet on the adoption bill this afternoon where it is expected to pass its own version of the measure. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle tells WSB's Sandra Parrish it will be a "clean" version of the bill that focuses only on child welfare.

It is expected that the controversial religious liberty language will not be included and may be filed as separate legislation. Cagle says it will move forward at a fast pace and could be voted on by the full Senate next week.

Original story:

Another fight is brewing between the Georgia House and Senate over modernizing the state’s adoption laws.

House members including Rep. Christian Coomer (R-Cartersville) again blasted the Senate on Tuesday for stalling last year’s adoption bill by adding what some consider religious liberty language to the measure.

“How can one claim to be a champion of life and kill adoption in Georgia,” he told his fellow House members.

He was joined by Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver (D-Decatur), who says years of work were spent crafting the bill with the help of judges, adoption experts, and adoption agencies.

“Georgia families were denied an opportunity for Georgia to modernize its adoption code and to become competitive with the other states,” she says.

But Sen. William Ligon (R-Brunswick), who authored the amendment last year, says there are other underlying problems with the bill beside his desire to see protections for agencies that don’t want to adopt to certain couples.

He says the House version would have commercialized adoption, raising the price for everyone to adopt. He is also concerned it would waive the 10-day period that mothers currently have to change their minds.

“We appreciate the fact that the House of Representatives worked on this bill for two years; however, the Senate had not been included in that process,” he tells WSB’s Sandra Parrish.

Ligon complains, unlike other important pieces of legislation, it wasn’t brought to the Senate until after Crossover Day last year--meaning only ten days were left to debate it.

“Being a comprehensive bill, we really didn’t have enough time to adequately look at the bill and become comfortable with it,” he says.

Ligon says the Senate did meet on the bill over the summer and is currently working on a substitute that may or may not include his amendment.

He may also file a separate bill with the language of the amendment which he does not consider part of the “religious liberty” fight. He says it would apply to any agency forced to go against its mission statement in the adoption process.