Mississippi’s governor on Tuesday signed into law a bill that allows businesses to refuse services to gay couples based on religious objections.
This bill states that it protects “sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions,” including a belief that marriage is only between a man and a woman. It also says that a person’s gender is that “determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth” and goes on to say that businesses can determine who is allowed to access bathrooms, dressing rooms and locker rooms.
Republican Gov. Phil Bryant said in a statement that he was signing the bill “to protect sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions,” arguing that the new legislation is meant to allow people to exercise their religious freedom.
“This bill does not limit any constitutionally protected rights or actions of any citizens of this state under federal or state laws,” he said. Bryant added: “The legislation is designed in the most targeted manner possible to prevent government interference in the lives of the people from which all power to the state is derived.”
A host of groups had called on Bryant to veto the bill, arguing that the legislation allows for state-sanctioned discrimination. Lawmakers and others who supported the bill echoed Bryant in saying that the bill protects only people’s religious beliefs.
“This is a sad day for the state of Mississippi and for the thousands of Mississippians who can now be turned away from businesses, refused marriage licenses, or denied housing, essential services and needed care based on who they are,” Jennifer Riley-Collins, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, said in a statement. “This bill flies in the face of the basic American principles of fairness, justice and equality and will not protect anyone’s religious liberty.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement that “Mississippi’s abhorrent new law is going against the tide of progress in our country.”
Before the bill was signed by the governor, the state’s lieutenant governor, Tate Reeves, said it was needed after the Supreme Court ruled last year that same-sex couples have a right to marriage.
“In the wake of last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision, many Mississippians, including pastors, wanted protection to exercise their religious liberties,” Reeves, a Republican, said in a statement last week. “This bill simply protects those individuals from government interference when practicing their religious beliefs.”
Mississippi’s new law is set to take effect in July.
Similar laws have been proposed or enacted in other states, leading to heated controversies – and, in several cases, an outcry from business groups that scuttled or changed the bills.
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, R, last week vetoed a religious liberty bill there, a decision that came after the National Football League and Hollywood productions criticized the measure and suggested it could cost the state business. Similar bills were quashed or altered for similar reasons in Arizona, Indiana and Arkansas.
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