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A federal judge in Mississippi has allowed to stand a new state law that permits people to deny wedding services to same-sex couples based on religious objections.
U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves argued in his four-page order that since none of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs would be harmed by the law in the immediate future, a preliminary injunction would be inappropriate.
“Here, none of the plaintiffs are at imminent risk of injury,” Reeves wrote.
The law HB1523 is scheduled to go into effect on July 1, 2016. The implications and reach of this HB go quite far, as this article points out.
Right, advocating bigotry isn’t harmful at all! Asshat. Full story here.
I just wish it was economically feasible for a company to deny services to christians using “religious freedom” laws just to drive home the point to the bigots how discriminatory the laws are.
Denying service to Christians would be a clear and immediate violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which is why so many of the “religious freedom” laws specifically target LGBTQ people. If they targeted any people already protected by the Civil Rights Act (like Christians) they would be thrown out immediately by almost any judge.
There are two points which follow from this.
First, this makes it blatantly clear the laws aren’t about protecting religious freedom since if they were, they would allow Christians to discriminate against Jewish people and Protestants to discriminate against Catholics. After all, it’s a grave sin to worship a false god.
Second, it’s very important to either add LGBTQ people as a protected class under the Civil Rights Act at the federal level, or at least win the judicial precedent that LGBTQ people are already protected under the protections already offered based on sex and gender.
Kengi @2:
Agreed on both points.
I realize my comment @1 was a pie-in-the-sky argument. The christians have had a privileged position for so long that they think that any extension of rights to people that they don’t like is taking their freedom away. That is, their freedom to discriminate and/or persecute.
johnson catman @3
I agree with you as well. It’s a nice thought.
Yes, it’s all about the privilege and “right” to discriminate and persecute people they hate. That’s why these are anti-LGBTQ laws and not religious freedom laws.
I hope that Mississippians extend to its logical conclusion, with muslim clerks not selling alcohol or pork products, catholics not selling meat on friday, or working on sunday (or saturday, depending on one’s interpretation of ‘sabbath’), etc.
Hypothetically, those are even more protected actions, since they aren’t discriminating against anyone, just people following their religion.
Of course, it might inconvenience the hypocritical majority, so the courts would likely find a reason to say this wasn’t ok….
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