Governor Phil Bryant of Mississippi.
Mississippi’s Republican Gov. Phil Bryant signed a religious freedom bill into law on Tuesday.
HB 1523, also known as the “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act,” was approved by the House and Senate earlier last week.
Though several religious freedom bills have been voted on in several state legislatures, Mississippi's bill has been met with particular controversy because it reaches farther than any other religious freedom bill has before. Not only does the bill protect clergy and churches from hosting same-sex marriages and private religious organizations from hiring individuals who do not share the same beliefs, among other things, but it also allows state employees to refuse to provide marriage licenses or perform marriages that are against their religious beliefs.
The bill also explicitly protects the religious beliefs 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."
Bryant said he signed the bill to "protect sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions of individuals, organizations and private associations from discriminatory action by state government,” according to a statement released on Twitter.
Opponents say that it sanctions discrimination against LGBT people. Representatives from ACLU said that they were “deeply disturbed.”
"Freedom of religion is one of our most fundamental rights as Americans, but that freedom does not give any of us the right to harm or mistreat others," ACLU of Mississippi Executive Director Jennifer Riley-Collins said in an email to the Clarion-Ledger.
In contrast, supporters of the measure say that the law protects those who want to abide by their religious beliefs about marriage.
“This bill strikes an important balance that recognizes the new realities created by the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision — legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide — while offering reasonable accommodations for citizens whose sincerely held moral and religious beliefs remain opposed to such practices,” the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission research assistant Josh Wester and director of policy studies Andrew Walker wrote in an article titled, “Will Mississippi Lead the Way?” urging Gov. Bryant to sign the bill.
The law is set to go into effect by July 1.
