Opponents say anti-LGBTQ Mississippi law favors some religious beliefs

[DonViejo]

Source: Associated Press

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press · Sunday, December 18, 2016

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Gay rights groups and others are asking a federal appeals court to keep blocking a Mississippi law that would let merchants and government employees cite religious beliefs to deny services to same-sex couples.

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves halted the law before it could take effect July 1, ruling it unconstitutionally establishes preferred beliefs and creates unequal treatment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

The law championed and signed by Republican Gov. Phil Bryant sought to protect three beliefs: marriage is only between a man and a woman; sex should only take place in such a marriage; and a person’s gender is determined at birth and cannot be altered. Bryant filed papers in late October asking the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to lift the hold to let the law take effect.

The law — which started as House Bill 1523 — would have allowed clerks to cite religious objections to recuse themselves from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and would have protected merchants who refuse services to LGBT people. It could have affected adoptions and foster care, business practices and school bathroom policies. The plaintiffs’ appeal gives examples of what the law could allow: A restaurant manager refusing to seat a lesbian couple celebrating an anniversary dinner; a jewelry store clerk refusing to sell an engagement ring to straight couple if he believed the couple had previously had sex; social workers being unable to protect a child whose foster parents punished the child for being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender; public school counselors refusing to help LGBTQ students.

-snip-



Read more: http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/12/opponents-say-anti-lgbtq-mississippi-law-favors-religious-beliefs/

[David__77]

1. It seems to open the door to racial discrimination.

Some churches also object to interracial marriage.

[cagefreesoylentgreen]

3. Yep

I'm just waiting for some business owner with deeply held religious beliefs refusing to give service to "the Children of Ham."

[tenorly]

2. Those of the Southern Baptist Convention no doubt.

The same one Jimmy Carter left in 2000 because of their increasingly radical - and segregationist - nature.

Anyone who's lived in the Deep South has noticed that the First Baptist Church in any town of at least middling importance, is a fine, capacious old building typically located in the best part of town.

The Second Baptist Church, on the other hand, is much more modest (often little more than a pile of bricks or a shack). Those would be the black Baptist churches - the same ones being firebombed from time to time.