Head Of Black Caucus Says Anti-LGBT Bill Will Cause Job Loss, Economic Hardship

JACKSON, Miss. (PRESS RELEASE) – “It’s time to wise up and roll back discriminatory legislation before hundreds of Mississippians lose their livelihoods,” State Representative Sonya Williams-Barnes (D-Gulfport) said today.

“The Republican governor of Georgia vetoed similar legislation. The Republican Governor of North Carolina is now trying to dial-back that state’s anti-discrimination protections after losing major employers. Mississippians will pay a price if we don’t act and act now to reverse the damage caused by HB1523.”

“We can’t afford this. It’s clear that we’re already losing jobs and business because of this misguided bill, and it’s only going to get worse,” said Williams-Barnes, who is chair of the state’s Legislative Black Caucus and serves on both the tourism and gaming committees in the state legislature.

Business Insider has ranked the Mississippi economy as 51^st in the nation.

The singer Bryan Adams cancelled a planned concert in Biloxi as a protest against discriminatory legislation in Mississippi.

“Perhaps it’s prophetic that Bryan Adams has a well-known song called ‘Cuts Like a Knife,’” she said. “This narrow-minded legislation is going to cut like a knife through our communities, pushing us backwards to the days when Mississippi was a national symbol of intolerance and bigotry. We will experience cuts in employment and suffer other economic consequences due to the way our state is being perceived by the business world. In a few short days we’ve set the clock back 50 years and made Mississippi the national symbol of discrimination under law.”

“In the new war between the states for jobs and income,” said Williams-Barnes, “Georgia is going to win.”

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal recently vetoed a similar bill, giving his state a chance to build on its $5 billion-a-year film and television industry.

But in Mississippi, stage hands, vendors and other employees will lose work because of state travel bans and entertainers like Adams deciding not to perform in a state that makes it legal to discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens.

“Our casinos will lose customers and revenue, and we will telegraph a message to other employers that operating in our state means working under a cloak of prejudice,” said Williams-Barnes.

In addition, entrepreneurs like Rick Moore, president of the Mississippi Film Studio, recently told the Mississippi Business Journal that he expects to lose money he recently invested in expanding his facility.

Film and television production companies, Moore said, will be “ignoring and not considering Mississippi.”

“This is an ugly piece of legislation that is terribly unfair to our LGBT citizens, who are taxpayers and citizens of this state and deserve the same rights as everyone else,” said Williams-Barnes.

“And once you make it legal to discriminate against one group of citizens, where does it stop?”

HB1523 allows businesses to refuse service to same-sex couples and others based on a “sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction.”

“It wasn’t so long ago,” said Williams-Barnes, “that many people claimed ‘sincere’ religious or moral reasons for refusing service to people of color. Are we going back to those days, when people like me had to go to the back of the bus? Is refusing service in a bakery that makes wedding cakes all that different from refusing to serve someone on a lunch counter?”

Major Mississippi employers, including MGM Resorts, Nissan, Tyson Foods and Toyota have sharply criticized the new law, as have the Mississippi Manufacturers Association, the Mississippi NAACP and the Mississippi ACLU.

The bill is scheduled to go into effect on July 1, 2016.