Mississippi religious money well
spent?
Has the new
law in Mississippi been money well spent? The new law in question is Religious
Liberty Accommodations Act that basically makes it legal for persons of
religion to discriminate against gay or trans-gender individuals, claiming
their religion disagrees with the gay or trans-gender lifestyle. On the face of it the legislation started to
make sure people were using the bathroom “god” intended them to. A session of
the state congress was dedicated to this bill and then law. The governor spent
time lobbying for and signing into law this discriminatory bill. What is going
on in the state of Mississippi that may have been just a bit more important.
In an article by Mississippi State University
the state of Mississippi leads the nation in death from coronary heart disease
and stroke at even greater rates than the nation, and has a higher rate of
obesity than the majority of the nation. According to multiple articles
Mississippi ranks number 2 in the country in deaths by guns. Mississippi’s
unemployment rate is a full point and a half higher than the national average
and some counties are double the national average.
These are a few of the problems the government
of Mississippi could have been working on. They could have been reaching out to
industry to locate in the state, they could have been working on travel and
tourism to the state, they could have been working on a way to turn around
their slow growing economy. They could have been working towards making the state
more inviting for fortune 500 companies, and building a technology base for new
companies to invest in the state. Instead they were wasting their time voting
on a bill, that is set to become law July 1st, and violates the
first and 14th amendments of the constitution. It was more important to protect
their belief in god and to force that belief on anyone that steps foot in their
state then it was to make it a better place, not only for people that may visit
or want to start a new business there but for those that live in the state and
don’t happen to share the same religious view of the governor and his ilk.
Mississippi
has had a history of bigotry so I guess this shouldn’t actually be all that
surprising.
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