Thursday, February 25, 2016

Mississippi Goes Georgia On The Gays, The Transgenders, The Singles ... And The Children

When people around town meet me they often ask: Are you from here?

And I say: Born and raised right here.

To which they respond: You don’t sound like it.

And I reply — at least I reply this way if they look like they have a sense of humor and are unarmed: That’s because I graduated from the fifth grade.

We laugh; no one gets hurt; and then I say: Actually, I was born in Mississippi —

And they say: But you don’t sound like that either.

And I reply: That’s because my folks moved us when I was six months old so the stupid didn’t have time to stick.

Southern folks love me! But this isn’t about that; it’s about Mississippi, or as I’m thinking it should be called now: Missipoergia or Georgissippi.

See, Mississippi is going the way of Georgia, if their state legislature has their way and passes a bill that will about publicly elected state officials, private business owners and just about anyone else who provide services to the public to be free from being legally punished if they can just say that the Baby Jeebus told them to discriminate against The Gays.

Last week, Mississippi Representatives voted 80-39 to pass House Bill 1523, which also specifies that people cannot be punished for acting on beliefs that only married couples should have sexual relations and that a person’s gender identity is set at birth.

So, it’s The Gays and The Transgenders and The Single People that the Baby Jeebus hates?

The bill was being held for more debate — intelligent debate, if that's not too much to ask — before heading to the Senate.

Representative Andy Gipson, a republican and a Baptist Minister, so he’s twice the homophobe as a regular Mississippi official, says the bill won’t undo last year’s Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, but would simply allow people to practice their hate and discrimination against people because … Bible.

The bill — perhaps to be renamed the Kim Davis Bill — would allow circuit clerks the right to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and allow elected judges the ability to refuse to perform same-sex marriages; and, of course, there’s be no cakes from bigot bakers; no venues for dance from bigot venders; no dresses from  bigot seamstresses.

Oh, and just to make it queer that Mississippi Republicans hate anything and everything about The Gays, the  bill also says the state could not punish religious organizations for refusing to allow gay couples to adopt or even foster children.

Yup, let’s add that Mississippi hates children, too.

5 comments:

  1. So store clerks are going to start asking about folks' sex lives, their marital status, the ages of their kids (then count back on their fingers)...

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  2. Have I told you about the vintage-looking metal sign we find in Santa Barbara, California as a gift for our Norwegian cousin who like to say in her version of a hillbilly accent, "Howdy. My name is Ellen n I'm from Alabama. N I got me a gun to protect my wife and fambly."

    The vintage-looking sign read, "Welcome to Alabama. At least it's not Mississippi."

    (Or maybe it was the other way around... either way!)

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  3. The South's stupidity is slowly infecting the rest of the country. Wow! Maybe they did win the War Between the States, it just took them a long slow sneaky time to do so.

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  4. This honestly makes me want to cry. I lived in Mississippi for ten years. It was far more progressive then on issues than any other state around (except Louisiana). I was an out gay man there and I never once felt discriminated against. Grant it, I lived in Southeast Mississippi which is far more liberal than the rest of the state. I hate to see the place that allowed me to be comfortable enough to come out to turn into such a hateful place. I blame the governor Phil Bryant (I think he's still governor). Hailey Barbour (a republican) would not have stood for this bullshit, at least I hope not.

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  5. This retrogressive stance is to be deplored; what next? We stone adulterers and kill off anyone who we don't like for religious reasons? Perhaps that's what all the heavy duty artillery is for.

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