Mississippi gay marriage
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Protesters say a bill in Mississippi would sanction discrimination by letting widespread employees cite their own religious opinions to refuse to issue marriage licenses or perform weddings for same-sex couples.
Mississippi is one of about 10 states where such bills were filed in response to the U.S. Supreme decree last summer legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
The Mississippi Senate has a Wednesday deadline to consider Home Bill 1523. A few dozen people protested the bill Tuesday at the Capitol.
The bill says public employees, business people and those involved with foster care or adoptions could not be punished for acting on beliefs that marriage should only be between a man and a woman; that “sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage”; and that gender is determined at birth.
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JACKSON — Legal challenges to the anti-LGBT House Bill 1523 will continue, as U.S. District Determine Carlton Reeves has lifted the stay on the 2014 lawsuit that sought to force the State of Mississippi to realize same-sex marriages and issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Plaintiffs in the 2014 Campaign for Southern Equality v. Phil Bryant et al case took issue with the section of HB 1523 that allows state government officials, including circuit clerks, to “seek recusal from authorizing or licensing lawful marriages based upon or in a manner consistent with a sincerely held religious conviction or moral conviction described in Section 2 of this act.”
HB 1523 protects the “sincerely held” religious beliefs or moral convictions” that marriage is between “one man and one woman;” sexual relations are reserved for such a marriage; and sex is determined “by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.”
Circuit clerks looking to recuse from issuing same-sex marriage licenses are supposed to provide written notice to the State Registrar of Life-giving Records. Plaintiffs in the CSE v. Bryant 2014 case, represented by Roberta Kaplan, argued that this section of HB 1523 warranted re-opening of
Mississippi, Arkansas same-sex marriage bans fall (UPDATED)
UPDATED Wednesday 12:11 a.m. The wave of federal court rulings against state bans on same-sex marriage swept into the Serious South on Tuesday, as a federal judge in Mississippi struck down that state’s prohibition. In a fervent defense of the role of the courts in protecting individual rights against majority voter sentiment, and a lengthy critique of Mississippi’s history against gay rights, U.S. District Judge Carlton Wayne Reeves of Jackson found the ban to be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equality. He deposit his ruling on keep for two weeks to allow the state to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, where conflicting rulings from Louisiana (upholding a ban) and Texas (nullifying a ban) are already pending. (The upload below discusses a ruling in Arkansas earlier in the day.)
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Refusing to postpone acting until state courts rule on the issue, a federal judge in Little Rock on Tuesday struck down the Arkansas ban on homosexual marriage. This was the second ruling against such a ban in a state within the geographic region of the federal Eighth
Gay Marriage Advocates Yearn Mississippi Law Struck Down
JACKSON, Miss. — Advocates of lgbtq+ marriage said Monday that they will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down a Mississippi law that lets government workers and business people cite their have religious objections to refuse services to gay couples.
The rule, considered the broadest religious-objections law enacted since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, has been on hold amid court challenges. But it is arrange to take outcome Friday because a federal appeals court refused to preserve blocking it.
Championed and signed by Republican Gov. Phil Bryant in 2016, the law protects three beliefs: that marriage is only between a man and a woman, sex should only grab place in such a marriage, and a person's gender is determined at birth and cannot be altered.
"This is an unfair and unconstitutional law," said Robert McDuff, an attorney for some of the lgbtq+ and straight Mississippi residents who sued to try to block it.
The Mississippi law would let clerks to cite religious objections to recuse themselves from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and would defend merchants who resist services to