Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood has decided against appealing a federal court's injunction ruling over the state's controversial Religious Accommodations Act.
On July 1, U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves issued an injunction order to block the law, set to take effect the same day.
Critics of the law said the state cannot overturn or preempt federal law. The injunction issued by Reeves found that through the law, Mississippi gives privileges to individuals who maintain certain moral convictions which "violates both the guarantee of religious neutrality and the promise of equal protection of the laws," Reeves wrote.
After Governor Phil Bryant signed HB 1523 in April, the law could have allowed clerks to cite religious objections to recuse themselves from issuing same-sex marriage licenses. The law included language to allow businesses to refuse service on the grounds of three specific beliefs. The beliefs included: marriage should only be between one man and one woman, sexual intercourse should only happen between one man and one woman in a marriage, and an individual's gender is assigned at birth and can't be altered.
The bill was seen by critics as discriminatory toward the LGBT community, and was protested by multiple federal and state organizations, along with celebrities and politicians.
For more, see the July 14 edition.