Governor Phil Bryant of Mississippi.
Several states and cities have prohibited state-funded, nonessential travel to Mississippi in response to the state’s passage of a law that offers legal protection to individuals and institutions to decline services to LGBT people based on religious conviction.
On Tuesday, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed HB 1523, also known as “The Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act,” which protects individuals of various fields -- both in private and public sectors -- from facing legal consequences for acting according to their religious beliefs, particularly those regarding marriage.
"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," the legislation reads.
Since Tuesday, several states -- including Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington -- and three cities -- Seattle, San Francisco, and Santa Fe -- have banned non essential travel to the state.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order that banned travel to the state, saying that "… it is the policy of the state of New York to promote fairness, protect the welfare of the citizens of the state of New York, and combat discrimination," according to the order.
Various businesses, like the Mississippi Manufacturer’s Association AT&T, Toyota, Tyson Foods, Levi Strauss, and Nissan, have spoken out against Mississippi’s new law.
A similar executive order was signed against North Carolina for its transgender bathroom law, which prevents cities from providing LGBT people separate bathroom facilities.
In response, PayPal halted its plan to establish an operations center in Charlotte, N.C. which would have brought 400 jobs and $3.6 million in the area by 2017.
Chief executive of Google Ventures Bill Maris also committed to making no new investments in North Carolina until the law is no longer in effect, according to New York Times, with Apple, Facebook, and Charlotte-based Bank of America making similar commitments.
