Mississippi’s Anti-LGBTQ Law Is About to Go Down in Flames
These may be extraordinarily dark times for the LGBTQ community in America, but a bright spot is on the horizon—and out of Mississippi, of all places. No, the state’s Republican-dominated legislature hasn’t wised up and repealed its horrific anti-LGBTQ segregation law. But a federal judge has agreed to consider a constitutional challenge to the legislation at a hearing next week. And here’s the really good part: The woman in charge of the challenge is Roberta Kaplan, whose track record of knocking down anti-LGBTQ laws in Mississippi is pretty damn stellar.
Kaplan launched her challenge to the Mississippi law, HB 1523, by questioning an especially troubling provision that allows clerks to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples while still issuing them to opposite-sex couples. When the state refused to cooperate with her requests for information, Kaplan reopened a previous case that had challenged Mississippi’s same-sex-marriage ban. That litigation ended with an injunction barring the state or its officers from discriminating against same-sex couples; Kaplan simply asked the judge, Carlton W. Reeves, to extend his previous order to prevent Mississippi’s clerks from turning away same-sex couples.
Now it appears the judge will do much more than that. In response to Reeves’ interest in the constitutionality of the entire law, Kaplan has filed a new brief to demonstrate that HB 1523 violates not just the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, but also the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. HB 1523, Kaplan explains in her motion to enjoin the law, singles out three religious beliefs for special protection: The belief that marriage is between a man and a woman, that sexual relations outside of such a marriage are improper, and that a person’s gender must be the same as they sex they were assigned at birth. The law then elevates these beliefs for special treatment, granting their holders a near-absolute right to discriminate against gay, bisexual, and trans people with regard to “marriage licenses, adoption and fertility services, access to health care, and public accommodation in restaurants, hotels, wedding halls, and more.”
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/06/17/mississippi_hb_1523_law_is_an_establishment_clause_violation.html?wpsrc=sh_all_mob_tw_top
Smack Them Bigots
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