Biloxi blues: New law could target Mississippi gay community

Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision giving closely held corporations the ability to deny employees contraception coverage based on the beliefs of corporate directors relies heavily on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a 1993 federal statute designed to exempt individuals from some laws that might conflict with religious practices. Today, in Mississippi, a new state law mirroring that 1993 legislation goes into effect, and civil rights groups say it could lead to discrimination against members of the LGBT community in the name of religion.

Backers of the state law, signed on April 14 by Gov. Phil Bryant, say it’s necessary to protect the religious freedoms of individuals and organizations from “government interference,” and would help “cut red tape” for religious groups. But advocates in the gay community fear it will be used to shelter businesses from enforcement of anti-discrimination laws.

“It’s a blanket law that could be used to punish any minority not just gays,” said Lynn Koval, who has owned the Just Us Lounge, a gay bar in Biloxi, since 1996. “It could target anyone who does not share Baptist conservative beliefs.”

For years gay bars in the South have been more than just watering holes, providing support in a region often hostile to gay culture and lacking in LGBT organizations. Koval says when Just Us opened she knew it needed to be more than a bar. During the AIDS crisis, she teamed up with doctors to provide information, education and medicines for people suffering with the disease.

Today, Koval, who sees the new law as discriminatory, says that the forces behind RFRA represent a small but vocal rightwing religious population and are not necessarily representative of how locals treat the LGBT community. “If you put 100 Mississippians in a room, I would bet the majority would support my rights,” she says.

Koval does, however, concede that this support might only be strong in the coastal part of the state. Biloxi, known to locals the “Redneck Riviera” and one of the largest cities on Mississippi’s gulf coast, has always been more progressive than northern parts of the state. But the coast’s progressive leanings only go so far, Koval said, “We are still in Mississippi.”

Proponents of the new law see it as a preemptive measure. “Times are changing, and Christians are afraid of a lot of different things,” state Sen. Phillip Gandy, a Baptist Minister who sponsored the bill, told the AP in January. “And some of that is reality, possibly, and some is perception. But we want to do what we can.”

But the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy of the Washington, D.C.-based Interfaith Alliance sees a darker side. In a statement released when the bill was signed, Gaddy said, "Sadly, I fear that the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act is an attempt to codify discrimination."

For her part, Koval sees the law as largely a political gesture and doesn’t foresee many cases where it would actually be used to discriminate. “I may be old fashion but my advice to minorities [in Mississippi] would be to wake up, put your pants on and go to work just like you did the day before the law went into effect. Trust the relationships you’ve built with your neighbors.”

But if a case of discrimination were to arise, Koval says Mississippi’s gay community would be the first to speak out. “We would be at the lunch counters,” she said, invoking a symbol of Mississippi's Civil Rights activism. “We would be sitting at the front of the bus.”