Gov. Phil Bryant signed a law allowing religious groups and some private businesses to refuse service to gay couples based on religious beliefs.
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Phil Bryant signed the controversial bill – which allows businesses to discriminate against LGBT people – into law earlier this week.
He said the new law “merely reinforces” existing religious freedom rights, “does not limit any constitutionally protected rights or actions” and does not challenge federal law. This means that anyone who provides wedding services can refuse a gay couple’s business without the risk of legal action.
“While no other state has passed a law like this, MS also has the dubious distinction of being the first state to codify discrimination based on a religious belief or moral conviction that members of the LGBTQ community do not matter”.
But it left many questions unanswered, including how the state could be impacted by businesses that oppose the Religious Accommodation Act. Last week, the governors of Georgia and Virginia vetoed “religious liberty” bills.
Reaction to Bryant’s signing the bill Tuesday, perhaps as expected, was mixed. States have been drawing up religious freedom laws, largely under pressure from religious groups, in response to the US Supreme Court ruling last summer legalising gay marriage.
Republican U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo, whose district is in southern MS, voiced support for the bill Monday.
The ACLU of MS promptly responded, tweeting that Bryant “just made discrimination a part of state law”.
The new law is scheduled to take effect in July.
The law could have harmful ramifications on Mississippi’s economy, however.
She also said the bill is “far from protecting anyone from “government discrimination” as the bill claims, it is an attack on the citizens of our state, and it will serve as the Magnolia State’s badge of shame”.
He argued that HB1523 “protects sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions”.
The organization Human Rights Campaign estimates that almost 200 bills deemed anti-LGBT have been introduced in almost three-dozen states during the 2016 state legislative sessions. PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said in a statement it would be “untenable” to move forward in a state where all employees would “not have equal rights under the law”. Nissan North America, Chevron, Huntington Ingalls Industries, MGM Resorts and Entergy all voiced opposition to the bill last week.
Ten other states are considering similar legislation to Mississippi’s.
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The law “was to ensure that that expectation of privacy would remain in our high schools and our universities and our community colleges”, McCrory said. The North Carolina Values Coalition said in a statement that “a company with its hands in the pockets of the taxpayers of North Carolina shouldn’t insert itself into the bathroom policies of the state”.
