Mississippi discrimination bill

[teaotter]

Mississippi's HB 1523, passed last year, has just gone into effect. The law allows for discrimination against three groups of people:

- Anyone suspected of being LGBT
- Anyone suspected of having a gender identity that doesn't match their (presumably original) birth certificate
- Anyone suspected of having had premarital sex

The law even allows discrimination in employment, housing, medical care, and government services.

What we can do:

If you're in Mississippi right now, call your state reps. Although it's billed as a "religious rights" law, it's really just legalized discrimination, and needs to be struck down.

For the rest of us, California has restricted state-funded travel to a number of states over LGBTQ rights, including Mississippi. State employees can't be forced to go there, and the state minimizes the amount of money they send that way.

EVERY STATE should be restricting their employee travel. If someone gets hurt in a car accident, there's no guarantee they'll get treatment. Hell, if they die, the mortuaries can refuse to send the body home. No one should be forced to choose between their job and those kinds of risks -- and other states shouldn't be supporting policies like this with their travel money.

Call your state reps and tell them you want your state to support the rights of LGBTQ people and others. Tell them to follow California's lead and ban non-essential state travel to states like Mississippi.

(Sources: Slate, Hornet App)

Comments

i am from mississippi and this screws with me.

[sporky_rat]

The folks who answer the phones for my reps are also pissed off at their reps. If you're from Mississippi, keep calling. If you're not from Mississippi, call your reps and let them know that they'd better not pass something like this.

Keep calling. Faxing. Emailing. Snow them in.

Re: i am from mississippi and this screws with me.

[teaotter]

My sympathies. I grew up in Arkansas, and I'm terrified of something like this passing there.