{"id":12019,"date":"2016-07-01T20:30:13","date_gmt":"2016-07-01T20:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/?p=12019"},"modified":"2016-07-01T20:30:13","modified_gmt":"2016-07-01T20:30:13","slug":"naacp-press-statement-hb-1523-found-unconstitutional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/naacp-press-statement-hb-1523-found-unconstitutional\/","title":{"rendered":"NAACP Press Statement: HB 1523 Found Unconstitutional"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>2016\/07\/01 &#8211; <\/strong>The Mississippi State Conference NAACP applauds the ruling issued by U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves on the true nature of H.B. 1523, deceptively named \u201cReligious Freedom\u201d law, as unconstitutional. H.B. 1523 was an attempt to legitimize discrimination and superimpose the rights and beliefs of some citizens over the rights and beliefs of others. \u201cThat is not how our society, how our state, or how our Constitution works,\u201d stated President of the MS State Conference NAACP Derrick Johnson.<br \/>\nThe court\u2019s decision exposes the weak justifications and insidious purposes of the law. The law, by its own language and intent, sought to force a whole class of Mississippians into a second-class citizenship. Though plainly targeting the LGBT community in an attempt to win-back perceived lost ground, H.B. 1523\u2019s sweeping language of discrimination also attacked single parents and any sexually active, unmarried adult making any of these citizens punishment-free targets for discrimination.<br \/>\n\u201cThe opinion and order issued by Judge Reeves rightfully condemns the State\u2019s attempt to legislate hate and discrimination,\u201d stated Johnson. Just as a person\u2019s \u201csincerely held religious beliefs\u201d were not found to be an adequate justification for past legislative discriminatory acts regarding race or gender, the \u201cReligious Freedom\u201d law and its purported reasons are also insufficient and ring hollow under any scrutiny.\u201cThere will always be someone who feels differently, thinks differently, believes differently than you,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWhen that happens, it is not the state of Mississippi\u2019s job or place to take sides. That\u2019s what H.B. 1523 called for. It was a law designed to tell some Mississippians that my beliefs are worth more than your rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/naacp-press-statement-hb-1523-found-unconstitutional\/\">Mississippi State Conference NAACP<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2016\/07\/01 &#8211; The Mississippi State Conference NAACP applauds the ruling issued by U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves on the true nature of H.B. 1523, deceptively named \u201cReligious Freedom\u201d law, as unconstitutional. H.B. 1523 was an attempt to legitimize discrimination &#8230;..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":12021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,46,7,9,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerning-mississippi","category-justice","category-latest-news","category-mississippi-issues","category-news-today","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12019"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12023,"href":"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12019\/revisions\/12023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}