'Really folks, get Over it already. This Is Mississippi, you Know, M-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-humpback-humpback-I, you know, That state. Remember how we learned to spell it in High School? Wasn't that fun? What a 'fun' place this is, where we 'all' have the 'freedom', and absolute 'right' to treat Other people, and I think you Know who I'm talking about here, any ol' southern cracker way we want to. Remember back in the good ol' days when we had the 'right' to actually Own another human being. What a great time that was! We are So proud of our southern heritage, and bigoted past, that by golly we just want to keep on leaving a trail of pride in our path to the future. How Proud our children, and Their children will be of us.
Now you've probably heard about that snappy 'Religious Freedom' law that our sister state of confusion, North Carolina, recently passed. Well, I studied their clever law, and you know what, I just Knew that here in our ultra conservative, freedom loving, 'religious', and not a little Homophobic, state of Mississippi, we could do even better than That. And so I prayed, and I prayed, and then I prayed some more, asking the good Lord to send me a sign. What's the best way to get upmanship on that sticky Tar Heel state, I asked. And Then it came to me like a bolt out of the blue, lets have a law of our Own, right here in good ol' Miss.
And so I wrote, and I wrote, way into the darkness of night, right into the light of day. And Then, there it was, in black and white. The best doggone 'protect the rights of biggoted white religious people' law I ever did see.
And Then I thought, well there's no good sense in doing all this brain work if no one's gonna See it. And so I trapesed right down to the State House and plopped that baby right down, and said, look what I've done for the State of Ol' Miss.!
"Freshman Sen. Jennifer Branning, a Republican from Philadelphia [Miss.], presented the bill. She said it only has one goal: 'This bill in no way allows for discrimination by one person against another. What it does is it prohibits your government from discriminating against you with regard to your religious beliefs. That's the bottom line.'
And there it was, just laying there like like a steaming cow pattie waiting for the first unwary person to step ankle deep in it's unfathomable reality.
Now I Know at first reading it 'may' sound like I'm trying to protect biggoted, homophobic business owners from having to provide services to those, and I shudder to even Say the word, Gay, people. There, I said it! But Really, that's not the 'purpose' of it at all. You know how you always just Hate it when your Government interferes with your southern 'way of life', you Know sorta like the north did when they started the war against us back in the 1850's over our 'property Rights', wink-wink. Well, this honey of a law of mine will protect You from that Very thing. Let's say for example, that one of those gay people, if any of them actually still Live in our wonderful state, comes into your store and wants you to make a cake for them. Well, with My law, you don't Have to make that cake if Jesus tells you it's against your biggoted 'religion' to do so, and the government can't make you do it. See? That's all there is to it. Well, Sure, there's a 'little' more to it than just Cakes but no need to blather on about That. No big deal folks. Just put a sign on your door that tells those 'same sex lovers' that you have the 'right' to not serve them because Jesus told you so. I mean, look how 'well' it worked when you could turn away those black people back Then. I'm just trying to protect You from your government, oh, which I just happen to be Part Of by the way, so now you might wonder if you need protection from Me. Let me 'assure' you that I am Not a threat to Any one in our fair state. I'm here for each and every one of you, well, except for, you Know Who. I say let them eat their cake somewhere else. And so, just as soon as our sweet, practically in our pocket Governor, signs my law, we'll have upmanship on those tar footed Carolinians, and our freedom loving State of good ol' Miss. will once again be in the forefront of the 'civil' rights movement. :/ :/
Here's Why Mississippi's 'Religious Freedom' Bill Is So Controversial
The Rev. Chris Donald, a Methodist chaplain at Millsaps College, joins other human rights advocates Wednesday at the state Capitol's rotunda, calling for the Mississippi Senate to defeat what they believe is a discriminatory anti-LGBT bill. The Senate passed the bill, which is now on the governor's desk. Rogelio V. Solis/AP hide caption
toggle caption Rogelio V. Solis/AP 
The Rev. Chris Donald, a Methodist chaplain at Millsaps College, joins other human rights advocates Wednesday at the state Capitol's rotunda, calling for the Mississippi Senate to defeat what they believe is a discriminatory anti-LGBT bill. The Senate passed the bill, which is now on the governor's desk.
Rogelio V. Solis/AP Supporters describe it as a bill protecting religious freedom. Critics call it a sweeping bill giving state sanction to open discrimination against LGBT people.
The legislation, now sitting on the governor's desk, allows state employees to refuse to issue same-sex-marriage licenses and protects private companies and religious groups from being punished for denying a range of services to LGBT people.
And it's clearly focused on the treatment of LGBT people — not on religious freedom writ large.
State religious freedom bills have made the news frequently in recent years, from the controversial passage of an Indiana law last year to one that Georgia's Republican governor refused to sign last month.
Those laws often defined religious belief quite broadly. Supporters of such bills could argue — as Douglas Laycock of the University of Virginia did last year, talking to NPR's Jennifer Ludden — that religious freedom laws have a range of applications.
"There are cases about churches feeding the homeless. The neighbors sometimes don't like that. There are cases about Muslim women wearing scarves or veils. They're about Amish buggies. They're about Sabbath observers," Laycock said, saying such laws would apply to all those cases.
Not so Mississippi's bill. Here's Section 2, in its entirety:
The bill then defines all the actions that a Mississippi resident could take — with one of those moral convictions as a reason — with the guarantee that the state government won't punish him or retaliate against him.The sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions protected by this act are the belief or conviction that:
(a) Marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman;
(b) Sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage; and
(c) Male (man) or female (woman) refer to an individual's immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.
For religious organizations, protected actions include refusing to conduct a marriage, firing or disciplining employees, declining to provide adoption or foster care services and refusing to rent or provide housing.
For individuals and private companies, they include "guiding, instructing or raising" a foster child in accordance with those three beliefs; refusing to give counseling, fertility services or transition-related medical care; declining to provide wedding-related business services; and establishing sex-specific dress codes and having sex-segregated restrooms and other facilities.
And the bill allows state employees to refuse to license or perform marriages to which they morally object.
Any state punishment or retaliation for such actions, like a person losing a job, a license or a state grant, is deemed "discrimination" under the bill, with compensation to be available for those so affected.
The law doesn't mention the right of a private company or person to fire employees or refuse to rent housing. But in Mississippi, as in 27 other states, it's already legal to fire people or refuse to lease them property because of their sexuality.
Both proponents and opponents of the bill have focused on the impact it would have when LGBT Mississippians seek to marry, raise children or receive medical and psychological services. Supporters say the law protects the religious freedoms of those opposed to homosexuality; opponents say the law amounts to a state sanction of discrimination against LGBT people.
Some groups have also noted that because an opposition to extramarital sex is also a protected belief, the proposed Mississippi bill could also impact unmarried couples and single mothers.
But, again, it's worth noting that in Mississippi, as in 27 other states, it's already legal to deny housing to an unmarried couple based on a landlord's objection to premarital sex. Mississippi even has a rarely enforced law on the books criminalizing cohabitation.
Paul Boger of Mississippi Public Broadcasting reported Thursday on the state Senate debate over the bill. The vote broke down along party lines, Boger reports, with Republicans in favor and Democrats vocally dissenting:
The state House and Senate passed the bill earlier this week, and on Friday morning, the House approved the final version. It's now headed to Republican Gov. Phil Bryant, for signature or veto."Freshman Sen. Jennifer Branning, a Republican from Philadelphia [Miss.], presented the bill. She said it only has one goal: 'This bill in no way allows for discrimination by one person against another. What it does is it prohibits your government from discriminating against you with regard to your religious beliefs. That's the bottom line.'
"In all, debate lasted a little more than three hours, with many Democrats arguing the bill was discriminatory against the LGBT community in Mississippi. Many drew distinct parallels between this bill and Jim Crow laws. Sen. John Horne of Jackson says Mississippi's history does not need to repeat itself. ... 'We don't need to put another stain on Mississippi.' "
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