A federal judge has denied a request for a stay of his ruling striking down Mississippi’s anti-LGBT “religious freedom bill”, HB 1523. That means the law won’t remain in effect as Governor Phil Bryant appeals the judge’s ruling.
Bryant signed HB 1523 into law in April and on July 1, US District Judge Carlton Reeves struck it down.
HB 1523 has been described as the worst religious freedom bill to-date in the entire country.
In Judge Reeves’ denial of the request for a stay, he suggests that the bill’s proponents could not demonstrate a considerable enough reason why the bill needed to remain in place during the appeals process.
“[I]ssuing a marriage license to a gay couple is not like being forced into armed combat or to assist with an abortion. Matters of life and death are sui generis. If movants truly believe that providing services to LGBT citizens forces them to ‘tinker with the machinery of death,’ their animus exceeds anything seen in Romer, Windsor, or the marriage equality cases,” he wrote — referencing the U.S. Supreme Court’s earlier gay rights cases.
“The motions are denied,” Reeves wrote in Monday’s order. “The baton is now passed.”
