Barring last-minute intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court, a groundbreaking religious objections law in Mississippi will take effect Friday.
The bill, “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act,” was signed into law by Gov. Phil Bryant in 2016.
Written in light of bakers, florists and others who have run afoul of left-wing anti-discrimination laws, the Mississipp law protects three beliefs: that marriage is only between a man and a woman; sex should only take place in such a marriage; and a person’s gender is determined at birth and cannot be altered.
The law has been on hold amid court challenges but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently refused to keep blocking it.
Supporters of same-sex marriage are now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the law but Rob Chambers of AFA Action says the Supreme Court’s controversial Obergefell decision allows for states to enact such laws in order to protect religious beliefs.
AFA Action is the political arm of Mississippi-based American Family Association, which backed the legislation.
Chambers recalls oral arguments during Obergefell when Justice John Roberts asked what would happen if a legal right to same-sex marriage collides with long-held religious beliefs about marriage.
The question was answered by the Obama-appointed Solicitor General, Donald Verrilli Jr., who predicted to the court that states will work out a way to balance a new “civil right” but also accommodate religious beliefs.
In fact, the controversial Obergefell decision was trumpeted by homosexual-rights activists who declared it the “law of the land,” and they mocked objecting Christians as “martyrs” and predicted that “anti-gay Christians” would be “ostracized” by a progressive nation.
The homosexual activists also mocked and ridiculed Kim Davis (pictured above), a Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for refusing to follow a court order to sign marriage certificates for homosexuals.
Yet the ruling overturned state laws or constitutional amendments in more than 30 states, and two years later the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a landmark case over a Colorado baker who was fined for refusing to take an order for a homosexual couple’s wedding cake.
“So basically what’s happened in Mississippi,” says Chambers, “is that Mississippi has taken the lead of the Supreme Court by enacting House Bill 1523, which protects citizens and organizations having traditional views on marriage and sexuality.”
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Copyright American Family News. Reprinted with permission.
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