Impacts of Faith-Based Decision Making on the Individual-Level Legislative Process: Emerging Research and Opportunities (Advances in Public Policy and Administration (APPA))

"This book explores how faith influences individual-level legislative decision making; how faith influences an individual legislator's political judgment in the early-stage legislative decision making regarding the bills that are sponsored; how the heightened lawmaking efforts by legislators that are more inclined toward religious claims due to their opposition to homosexuality, and other topics"--

Karla L. Drenner is a lead professor in the Public Administration department at Kaplan University. Her research focuses on women in public service, religion and politics and social equity issues. She is in her 9th term serving in the Georgia House of Representatives and sits on five legislative committees including: Rules; Health and Human Services; Natural Resources and the Environment; Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications; and, Small Business Development. She was elected as the first openly gay legislator in the southeast and through this book seeks to share her first-hand experience of the legislative process and the importance of bridging the divides between our differences. She has written a book titled: One: The True Story of Politics, Prayer, and the Power of One in which she discussed her experiences. Her leadership, courageousness, and compassion for equality has earned her recognition from numerous organizations such as: National Foundation for Women Legislators, Women of Excellence Award; the Dan Bradley Humanitarian Award from the Human Rights Campaign; Legislator of the Year by the Southeast Association of Telecommunications, Nine-time winner of the Georgia League of Conservation Voters Environmental Leadership Award; the Legislative Service Award from the Georgia Opticians Association for her work on improving the education requirements for opticians; the Voices of Note Award from the Atlanta Gay Mens Chorus; she has been named a Diva for Life by Business-to-Business magazine; the Advocate named her a Ballotbox Trailblazer; and she received the Legislator of the Year from the Organization of DeKalb Educators; Georgia Psychological Association honoured her for her LGBT Advocacy along with Stonewall Bar Association who presented her with the Courageous Service Award. And from Georgia Equality she was named Champion for Equality. Other honours include Excellence in Partnership Award from the Community Action Program, for her work on refugee microenterprise initiatives and the AIDS Survival Project named her a Legislative Hero for her efforts in combatting AIDS.