Problem statement
With the passage of the House Bill 1523 (HB 1523) by the legislature of the State of Mississippi, its societal implication significantly undermines the civil rights of the LGBT community. The outright state-sanctioned discrimination against LGBT people aggravates the chronic social inequality by depriving them of equal civil rights. NGLTF (National LGBTQ Task Force) shows that only 9 states and the District of Columbia protect LGBT people from employment, housing and other discrimination based on sexual discrimination and gender identity/expression. The most imperative action for the Mississippi State is for the lawmakers to repeal the currently passed bill and for the state government to realize an equality bill, thereby diminishing the increasingly widening inequality.
Evidence
The LGBT community has been suffering from fear of constant discrimination that detrimentally affects their personal safety, family, and way of life.
The discriminatory actions can pose a deleterious threat to the mental health of lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people. Immediate consequences include fear, sadness, alienation, anger, and an increase in internalized homophobia (Russell, 2000; Russell & Richards, 2003).
Verbal bullying LGBT students face at school becomes predominant, adversely influencing their academic and social life everyone is entitled to enjoy in the school years. The Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) discloses that an LGBT high school student will hear 26 anti-LGBT slurs per day, 28% of which drop out of school due to this harassment.
Status Quo
Southerners feel significantly more discomfort about their LGBT families, friends, and neighbors than is found in other regions of the country. According to the 2015 Gallup Poll, Mississippi is the most conservative state, with 48.9 percent of respondents claiming to be conservatives. The characteristic conservatism in the Magnolia State has proved to be a huge impediment to universal acceptance of the ideology of LGBT. For instance, Mississippi sexual education curriculum mandates that students are to be told that homosexual activity is illegal. Further, the misfit of patriarchal role The William Institute has found that 81% of Mississippi residents think that LGBT people experience discrimination in the state.
In this day and age, not only are the laws conducive to LGBT’s benefits not well established, but also the legislature is rife with mandates that either contradistinguish or bluntly disfavor the LGBT group. According to Human Rights Campaign, more than 100 anti-LGBT bills have been filed and continue to grow, many of which use rhetoric to justify hate. HB 1523 serves as a perfect example of the bill that encroaches upon the interests of LGBT Mississippians through including religious exemptions.
LGBT Mississippians confronting tremendous bigotry would be formally mistreated since the ostensible Religious Freedom Restoration Act along with HB 1523 foment such behaviors as bullying at school and verbal violence at work.
Policy Proposal
It is indispensable that LGBT individuals are not exposed to explicit harassment, bullying and violence. In order to achieve this, HB 1523 must be immediately repealed. Further, it is highly demanded to have an equality act that amalgamates all pro-LGBT laws, including all pending resolutions designed to work on improving the social equity. For instance, seven cities in Mississippi—Jackson, Waveland, Bay St. Louis, Greenville, Magnolia, Oxford, and Hattiesburg— have passed resolutions formally opposing discrimination against LGBT citizens.
The equality act is drafted to legally forbid discrimination in all ranges of society including housing, education, public services, employment. Decades of civil rights history show that civil rights laws are effective in decreasing discrimination because they provide strong federal remedies targeted to specific vulnerable groups. By explicitly including sexual orientation and gender identity in these fundamental laws, LGBT people will finally be afforded the exact same protections as other covered characteristics under federal law.
Societal Consequences
HB 1523 can incur economic backlash considering the public condemnation by the primary employers in the state ranging from AT&T, Nissan to Toyota. Mississippi has already been at disadvantage nationwide due to the fact that it does not have as many big companies. A nonpartisan think tank has again ranked Mississippi last among all U.S. states in achieving the organization’s concept of a “new economy” built around innovation, globalization and technology. The hostility towards LGBT individuals in the Mississippi deteriorates the diversity almost all working places bolster in the corporate policies. HB 1523 will make it far more challenging for businesses across the state to recruit and retain the nation’s best and brightest workers and attract the most talented students from across the country. It will also diminish the state’s draw as a destination for tourism, new businesses, and economic activity. Therefore, both existing and prospective businesses might emigrate to other states, undermining the very foundation of the Magnolia State’s economic vitality. In contrast, accommodating equal services to LGBT people can spawn economic prosperity, notably the increase of state or federal tax gains. For example, permitting wedding services to LGBT Mississippians will add an estimated $11 million to the state economy, thereby generating over $750,000 in sales tax revenue to the state coffer.
Counterarguments
Granted, repealing HB 1523 would definitely provoke denunciations, since doing so infringes on the alleged benefits of particular groups. The religious leaders may impede the progress of passing LGBT bills in accordance with their stubbornly adhered beliefs and upbringing. In the purpose of rationalizing their dearth of recognition of individual choices, worldviews overshadow civil liberties. Also, HB 1523 helps defend the conscience that marriage is defined as the union between man and woman. The opponents can argue that their freedom to live consistent with a tenet of faith is compromised. Having boosted the cause of safeguarding the faith-based activities, the “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act” jeopardizes the confidence of LGBT people in hunting for jobs, praying in churches, renting housings, and etc. Being afraid of potential aversions of certain sexual orientation cannot be a reason that thwarts citizens’ ability to have a lifestyle, earn a living, and provide for their family. HB 1523 tremendously fosters the objectionable public hatred that is not supposed to exist in today’s civilization.
Conclusion
The underlying principle of America’s legislations encourages the social background where people of diverse race, sex, disability and religion are treated equally. It is the uncompromising quest for equality that makes the United States one of the most inclusive and all-embracing countries where wonders take place. However, this unbiased approach, in most cases, does not extend its consistency to people of different sexual orientation or gender identity. As the government, it is an incontrovertible urgency to afford the LGBT community support, care and most importantly, non-discrimination legal protections that they oftentimes lack and desire. Additionally, current laws that victimize people to uncertainty and potential discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, like HB1523, should be wisely modified and even repealed.