Many people are living in peril in Mississippi right now. I have represented some of them: a lesbian business owner run out of town by small-minded aldermen and a schoolgirl bullied by teachers and a principal because she looked too masculine. I have spoken with a 13-year-old whose father makes him eat out of a dog bowl on the floor because he is gay.

But there is one group of people in Mississippi who are decidedly not under attack. Despite last summer’s monumental US supreme court decision authorizing same-sex marriage, religious conservatives in Mississippi who oppose marriage equality or otherwise disapprove of LGBT people still can attend and worship at the church of their choice. They can go to work without fear of being fired. They can run for and be elected to public office. They can receive appropriate medical care from doctors without being turned away. They can even use public restrooms whenever needed, including in public buildings like courthouses and schools.

This illustrates the great irony of House Bill 1523, the so-called “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act” just signed into law by the Republican governor, Phil Bryant. The government doesn’t currently “discriminate” against people because of their religious beliefs about LGBT people; doing so would violate the US constitution and Mississippi law.



This cynical law bears a fake name for a fake problem. Sadly, our history has made us familiar with the playbook. Pick an unpopular group and then invoke religion to justify mistreatment, hatred and discrimination. This is the same way that powerful Mississippians and others justified slavery and Jim Crow, and the same way they denied women the right to vote.

There are, however, consequences to enacting these sorts of laws, including fiscal repercussions. Tennessee is considering a bill that would bar transgender people from using the appropriate bathroom, and it may lose $1bn in federal funds as a result, because federal education law prohibits discrimination. North Carolina’s new anti-LGBT law limiting transgender access to bathrooms and voiding local protections for LGBT people imperils billions of federal dollars the state receives for its schools, highways and housing.



Major companies, including PepsiCo, have demanded that North Carolina’s governor repeal the law, and more than 100 corporate executives signed on to a letter urging a repeal. States and municipalities across the country have barred official visits to that state.

With Mississippi’s newly enacted, draconian law, how much funding will Mississippi lose? How much will it pay out in attorney fees defending its unconstitutional law?

There are human consequences as well. Under this new law, if the 13-year-old shunned by his father needs foster care, it’s not clear that anyone would have to take him into their home or facilitate his placement. If his father kicks him out of the house, the local homeless shelter might turn him away.

Mississippi’s toxic endorsement of state-sanctioned discrimination under the guise of religious freedom is harmful and unlawful. There are an estimated 60,000 people in Mississippi who are LGBT, including nearly 12,000 people who are transgender. Many LGBT Mississippians are religious, many are people of color, many are raising children and too many of them are poor. Good conscience requires that Mississippi provide safety to these citizens, not target them for mistreatment in the name of religion.