The Left's empty threats may have made a chicken out of Governor Nathan Deal (R-Ga.), but it's certainly not slowing down other states. In Mississippi, Governor Phil Bryant (R) isn't about to tuck tail and run when liberals try to blackmail leaders into killing religious liberty bills or "lose business." That may have worked in Indiana and Georgia, but Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas know better. In fact, the Magnolia State is so unconcerned with the Big Business bravado that they haven't just passed any religious freedom bill -- but the best, most robust version yet.
This week, the House and Senate gave broad approval to a measure that wouldn't just protect churches (which Governor Deal refused to), but public officials, businesses, and faith-based organizations from state-sponsored persecution for their beliefs. As far as Mississippi is concerned, anyone with a natural view of marriage, gender, and sexuality should be just as free to live out their convictions as the LGBT crowd that attack them. To the Left's familiar -- and false -- arguments, state officials remind everyone: "[H.B. 1523] takes no rights away from anyone. It gives protection to those in the state who cannot in good conscience provide services for a same-sex marriage." After sailing through the Senate 31-17, the "Religious Liberty Accommodations Act" goes back to the House to reconcile a few differences, and then on to Governor Bryant's desk. Like North Carolina's Governor Pat McCrory (R), conservatives in Mississippi understand that corporate and liberal bullies will keep going down this path until they get pushback from voters and state leaders.
And pushback is exactly what Governor McCrory is giving to totalitarians like New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D), who was so adamant that grown men should be able to shower with our daughters that he's banning "non-essential" city employee travel to North Carolina in protest! That's interesting, McCrory fired back on this morning's "Fox & Friends" since New York doesn't have that law on their own books!
"It's demagoguery at its worse," he said. "I don't think the state of New York has such a law, [forcing] businesses to force people of one gender to be able to use the restroom and shower facilities in their businesses. So [Cuomo] might need to boycott his own state at this point in time." Not to mention, McCrory pointed out, the New York governor just got back from the Cuban regime. "Is this the kind of democracy we're going to have? You're going to go to Cuba, and then tell people not to come to North Carolina? There's a lot of hypocrisy."
At its core, he explained, if "you have the anatomy of a man, you shouldn't use the women's restroom, shower or locker room facility. It's basic common sense. It's etiquette of privacy that we have had for decades. And it's amazing that the national politically correct police have descended on my state and unfairly smeared my state." As to the threats from sports leagues and other businesses, he shrugs them off. "[Houston] rejected the exact same ordinance by 61 percent of the vote by the people... and there are no protests or boycotts of Houston, Texas during the Final Four basketball tournament -- nor should there be. So none of these corporations that are now criticizing North Carolina, they're all going to be advertising during the NCAA championship, and there's a lot of corporate and political and media elite hypocrisy about this."
Watch the full interview below, but our hats go off to Governor McCrory for showing other states that the best way to beat bullies is to ignore them! For more on the Left's march for special privileges, check out Travis Weber's new piece in Public Discourse, "Freedom of Conscience and New 'LGBT Rights' in International Human Rights Law."
