Georgia and Kentucky have become the first two Southern states to pass official resolutions in support of the rights of Soviet Jewry. The Georgian measure was adopted by the House of Representatives. The Kentucky resolution was passed by both houses of the State’s General Assembly. The resolutions, which are identical, asserted that "Jews and other religious minorities in the Soviet Union are being denied the means to exercise their religion and sustain their identity."
The USSR, the resolutions said, "is persecuting Jewish citizens by denying them the same rights and privileges accorded other recognized religions in the Soviet Union and by discriminating against Jews in cultural activities and access to higher education." Soviet Jews are also denied the right to emigrate, the document stated, and "these infringements of human rights are an obstacle to the development of better understanding and better relations between the people of the United States and the people of the Soviet Union."
The legislators asked President Nixon "to call upon the Soviet government to permit the free exercise of religion by all its citizens in accordance with the Soviet Constitution, to end discrimination against religious minorities, and to permit its citizens to emigrate from the Soviet Union to the countries of their choice as affirmed by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights."
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