The Mississippi legislative session is drawing nigh to its merciful end. We will soon be subject to a new set of laws — some good, some bad and, this being the Mississippi legislature, some patently stupid, even offensive.
House Bill 786, (The Mississippi Church Protection Act) and House Bill 1523 (The Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act) fit squarely in the last category. Both bills have been approved in both chambers and will soon head to the governor, who is expected to sign the measures into law.
House Bill 1523 would permit people, even government officials, to use their religious views as grounds for wide-ranging acts of discrimination — marriage, housing, jobs and countless services provided to all other people — based solely on their LGBT status.
What is likely to follow if the governor signs the law is predictable: The state will become the subject of national ridicule; businesses and organizations will exert economic pressure on the state to rescind the law; business now located in other states seeking to expand will quietly check the Mississippi off their lists of potential sites.
Ultimately, the law will meet its doom, either as a result of those pressures or through the court system which will almost assuredly find the law is a violation of the Constitution.
In the end, our state will have sacrificed much and gained nothing.
The Church Protection Act will allow churches to form armed security forces, members of which will be afforded civil liability protections.
The bill was presented as a response to the murder of nine people in Charleston, South Carolina, in June.
That is, at best, a misunderstanding of the true nature of that tragedy and, at worst, a deliberate attempt to use churches as sanctuary for laws that could not otherwise stand up to constitutional scrutiny.
Both laws are cleverly cloaked in religion to take advantage of the protections uniquely afforded religion in our Constitution. They are the political wolves (gun activists and gay-bashers) disguised in sheep’s clothing (religion).
Local pastors have reacted to this gun bill with disbelief and skepticism. None of the pastors contacted by The Dispatch said they had any intention of arming their church staffs or members.
Churches are many things. They are places of worship, of healing, of introspection, of love and mercy and peace.
As the Founder of the Christian Faith noted: “It is written, ‘My house will be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.”
This gun bill, despite its window-dressing, is just that. It distorts the message of the church and robs it of its purity.
It is a nakedly-political assault on the sanctity of the church approved by men who should be ashamed, among them local legislators Gary Chism, Rob Roberson, Jeff Smith and Chuck Younger.
For years, we’ve heard the cries of various “Attacks on Christianity.”
Finally, we see an instance where that claim is legitimate.
We cannot help but note the sad irony that the attack is presented in something called “The Mississippi Church Protection Act.”
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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