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ACLU Sues Mississippi Over LGBT Discrimination Law

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Human Rights Campaign organized a rally and march from the Mississippi Capitol in Jackson to the Governor's Mansion to protest HB 1523 which was signed into law in April, May 1, 2016.
Human Rights Campaign organized a rally and march from the Mississippi Capitol in Jackson to the Governor's Mansion to protest HB 1523 which was signed into law in April, May 1, 2016.James Patterson—Human Rights Campaign/AP Images
By Sarah Begley

The ACLU and a gay couple are suing Mississippi over a law set to go into effect July 1 that will allow businesses to deny service to customers based on their religious objections to gay marriage.

The bill, HB1523, is one of a range of similar laws being debated by the public this year that pit religious liberty against LGBT protections. The lawsuit, comes with national attention trained on North Carolina, where Gov. Pat McCrory’s administration is suing the federal government over a law, among other things, prohibits transgender people

“Our grandparents experienced discrimination for being black, and my parents probably did as well,” said Nykolas Alford, one half of the engaged couple bringing the suit in Mississippi. “My parents were born in the ’60s and grew up in the ’70s and ’80s, and so it’s always been a part of our lives. We thought this movement was over, you know? We thought that we would be fine. We thought that we would be equal, and here we are today saying that we’re not, and we want equality.”

[AP]

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