The Mississippi State Legislature seems content with enforcing the stereotype that Southerners are backwards bigots. This proposed enforcement takes the form of House Bill 1523, also known as the “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act.” Buckle your seatbelts Bulldogs, because we are in for a wild ride if our Governor decides to let this pile of garbage see anything outside a paper shredder.
This bill, which passed the Senate Judiciary committee and is being heard in the full Senate any day now, was supposedly written with the intent of providing “certain protections regarding a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction for persons, religious organizations and private associations,” according to the language of the bill. However, what it actually does is not only explicitly allow discrimination against LGBT people, anyone who believes in same-sex marriage, and people who have sex outside of the marriage between two people who were assigned different genders than each other at birth, but it also prevents any sort of retaliatory action toward the people who refuse to do their jobs because of their own discriminations.
If you are so overwhelmed by personal bias that you cannot give all people the same decency and fairness enough to do your job properly for all people, especially in the case of government or healthcare employees that could be the difference between good and terrible qualities of life, you should not have that job. Period.
This is the year 2016.We should not be using the same discriminatory arguments that were used by people during desegregation. It may come as a surprise only a few short decades after-the fact, but according to Ian Millhiser of thinkprogress.org, in 1975 the IRS began revoking the tax-exempt status of universities that cited religion as a reason to discriminate based on race. This caused backlash even leading to a supreme court case in which an 8-1 vote decided that “on occasion this Court has found certain governmental interests so compelling as to allow even regulations prohibiting religiously-based conduct.”
HB 1523 explicitly prohibits the removal of tax-exempt status as a result of institutions or individuals of such discriminating against people for their LGBTQ, ally, single mother, or person who has had sex outside of a straight, cis marriage status. Does this not therefore point to the Mississippi legislature being fully aware of the childish discriminatory actions they are attempting to protect with this bill?
A famous American Judicial philosopher, Zechariah Chafee wrote in 1919 “Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.” This was nearly a century ago and Americans are still in heated debates on whether or not to allow “liberties” that hinder the liberties of others.
Being gay or trans or an ally or a single mother does not harm a religious person. Requesting to be treated with the same dignities and rights as any other person does not infringe upon the rights and liberties of another.
Preachers are already protected by the US Constitution from performing marriages they do not want to perform–that is why we have secular individuals granted authority to ordain marriages. Marriage is not in itself a religious institution. It is a legal and financial institution. According to history and family studies instructor of The Evergreen State College Stephanie Coontz. As much as one may wish to argue it, the United States of America is formulated to protect people from religion as much as it is supposed to protect the rights of the religious. This is why we have no national religion. You are perfectly allowed to have your religious beliefs until your religion infringes on the liberties of another. Religious liberty is therefore not absolute. If someone has a “deeply held religious belief” that they need to sacrifice a person to the god of dingy carpets, it is still murder if they go through with it.
Dear Mississippi Legislature and Governor, if HB 1523 were a bill targeting interracial marriages and those who support it, I would like to think this bill never would have made it past casual discussion. HB 1523 uses the same arguments and tactics against groups currently in the public eye that pro-racial segregation advocates made within some of your lifetimes. Bad law is bad law, no matter what year it is. Please deeply consider your reasoning for attempting to pass a bill which will harm far more than it aims to protect.
