Federal judge blocks MS religious objections law

They are that marriage should only be between one man and one woman; that sexual intercourse should only happen in such a marriage; and that one’s gender is assigned at birth and can not be changed.

It sought to protect Mississippians who had three specific religious beliefs: That marriage was between one man and one woman, that sex is reserved for heterosexual married couples and that gender is determined at birth.

However, critics warned that the law could have affected business practices, adoptions, foster care, school bathroom policies and marriage licences.

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, in a ruling late on Thursday, said that the wide-ranging law adopted this spring unconstitutionally allowed “arbitrary discrimination” against the homosexuals, unmarried people and others who do not share such views.

Over a dozen U.S. states have passed or considered “religious liberty” laws in response to last June’s historic Supreme Court decision to legalise gay marriage nationwide.

“There are nearly endless explanations for how HB 1523 condones discrimination against the LGBT community, but in its simplest terms it denies LGBT citizens equal protection under the law”, Reeves wrote.

“In physics, every action has its equal and opposite reaction”, he wrote.

Just minutes before House Bill 1523 was to take effect at midnight, Reeves eviscerated the bill – the most sweeping attempt by a state to undermine the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision to legalize gay marriage – as being in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Bryant said Friday he would fight to appeal Reeves’ decision.

Attorney General Jim Hood – the lone Democrat in statewide office – had his staff defend the bill but reversed course after the ruling, saying he doesn’t know if an appeal is worthwhile for a state with budget problems. The fact is that the churchgoing public was duped into believing that HB1523 protected religious freedoms.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is conservative, yes, but recent high court decisions make the probability of appellate relief for the Legislature highly unlikely.

Tennessee’s governor in April signed a bill allowing mental health counselors to refuse to treat patients based on the therapist’s religious or personal beliefs.

Elizabeth Sepper, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said the First Amendment prohibits government from favoring one set of beliefs over others.

“The fact is that the church-going public was duped”, Hood said, noting that MS already has a law to protect those seeking to exercise religious freedoms.

Tony Perkins is president of Family Research Council, a group that advocates marriage as only between a man and a woman.

A federal judge blocked a law that that would let clerks cite their own religious beliefs to step aside from granting marriage licenses to gay or lesbian couples.

Religious supporters of a MS law dealing with objections to gay marriage say they hope a higher court will overturn the federal judge’s ruling that blocked the law. The law was blocked just before it was supposed to take effect Friday.In addition, one MS government clerk filed a form seeking recusal from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.However, a Health Department spokeswoman told The Associated Press that the department no longer has any record of who filed the form.Sharlot says the law became moot before it was supposed to take effect Friday, so the state registrar of vital records mailed the recusal form back to the official who filed it.

Rob McDuff, an attorney who filed the Mississippi Center for Justice lawsuit challenging the law, said “it is now time for all of us, as Mississippians, to move beyond division and come together in the ongoing pursuit of a society that respects the rights of everyone”.

Roberta Kaplan, the attorney who masterminded the lawsuit against HB 1523, with Edie Windsor, whom she represented in her successful effort to challenge the federal same-sex marriage ban.

Coupled with a ruling Reeves filed earlier in the week — preventing circuit clerks from denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples – the proposed law is, for the moment, stillborn. The Supreme Court marriage ruling came down while the MS appeal was pending.