GOP Governor Criticizes ‘People Around the Country’ Who Need to ‘Understand That People of Faith Have Some Rights as Well in This Country’
Gov. Phil Bryant sounded frustrated Monday when he told a local reporter that the anti-gay law he signed last week is “not discriminating against anyone,” despite a swath of legal experts who say not only is it discriminatory, it is unconstitutional. The Republican governor derided Americans nationwide who have expressed outrage and concern over HB 1523, the Protecting Freedom of Conscience From Government Discrimination Act.
“People around the country may be overreacting to it,” Bryant told WAPT News (video below) saying Americans just don’t understand the new law. “That’s my summation of it. They need to read the bill and understand that people of faith have some rights as well in this country.”
Asked about all the companies who have publicly denounced the new law, Gov. Bryant tried to suggest they are doing it out of political correctness.
“I understand that they get some pressure. I’m sure there’s been a lot of phone calls (and) a lot of emails to them. I’ve spoken to a number of them (and) they understand what we’re trying to do,” Bryant said, intimating that their public opposition might only be for show.
“They have good attorneys there that read this law and understand that it is balancing the scales for the people of faith. That’s simply all we’re trying to do, is say that people of faith have some protection from an overbearing government that could determine whether or not they can continue to be in business or put them out of business. That’s what this is all about,” Bryant insisted.
Bryant’s opinion is in the minority.
University of Mississippi School of Law Professor George Cochran, who clerked for Chief Justice Earl Warren and has been on the faculty at “Ole Miss” since 1972 has said point-blank HB 1523 is “unconstitutional.”
And earlier this month, over “a dozen law professors with expertise in constitutional and civil rights law also deemed HB 1523 unconstitutional, according to a statement issued by Columbia University School of Law.
HB 1523 “protects” people who claim to have “sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions” that marriage “is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman,” that sex is “properly reserved to such a marriage,” and that male and female “refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.”
Watch:
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