BREAKING: Mississippi House Sends Anti-LGBT ‘Religious Freedom’ Bill to Gov. Phil Bryant

Democratic Lawmaker of 31 Years Calls HB 1523 ‘The Most Hateful Bill That I’ve Seen in My Career in the Legislature’

All eyes are on Republican Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant after the state House voted 70-47 on Monday afternoon to send a hateful anti-LGBT “religious freedom” bill to his desk.

Bryant could follow the lead of governors in Georgia and North Dakota by vetoing the bill in the face of opposition from the business community. Or he could dig in his heels like North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, and sign it into law. But LGBT experts have said HB 1523 is even worse than North Carolina’s House Bill 2. 

Dozens of businesses, as well as Mississippi’s chamber of commerce, have already come out against the measure, which initially cleared the House last week but was delayed when Democrats introduced a motion to reconsider. 

Democratic Rep. Steve Holland gave an impassioned speech against the bill before Monday’s final vote. 

“This is the most hateful bill that i’ve seen in my career in the Legislature,” said Holland, a state lawmaker since 1985. “There’s literally zero reason for it.”

Holland, an undertaker, also said he recently performed a funeral free of charge for a man who died of AIDS, and recalled how he was heartbroken when his black friends couldn’t go to school with him in the early 1960s. 

“My family and I do not practice discrimination,” Holland said, his voice rising. “You call it religious whatever you want to, but you ought to be ashamed of yourself because you’re doing nothing but discriminating. 

Democratic Rep. Jay Hughes also slammed the measure, calling it “facially unconstitutional” and noting that in addition to LGBT people, it allows discrimination against anyone who’s had premarital sex. 

“How does a store owner or a public official administer that test?” Hughes said. 

HB 1523 would bar the state from taking action against individuals, religious organizations, nonprofits and other entities that discriminate based on their belief that marriage should be between one man and one woman, that sexual relations should be reserved to such a union, or that “male” and “female” refer to someone’s “immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.”

 

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