A strange new story in Mississippi highlights how ignorant extremists can misinterpret religious liberties as defined in the First Amendment, and how progressives then use such incidents to condemn laws meant to protect valid invocations of religious freedom.
According to news outlet Deep South Voice, the owner of a wedding venue called Boone’s Camp Event Hall refused service to two people getting married because they were an interracial couple. In a bizarre twist, the owner originally refused service citing her Christian beliefs.
As the story spread on social media and other outlets picked it up, the owner eventually rescinded her claim that her Christian faith banned interracial marriages, unable to find support for such a stance in the Bible. It’s not clear if the owners have changed their mind about hosting the wedding. The Booneville Main Street Association released a statement about the incident. “We do not discriminate based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender. We are working hard to move Booneville in a positive direction & to grow out city!”
The Deep South Voice article also reported claims from a lesbian couple alleging that the same business owners denied them service because they don’t believe in same-sex marriage, per their Christian faith.
For all intents and purposes, the part of the story involving the interracial couple seems like an isolated incident involving an unusually uninformed racist couple who violated federal law in order to perpetuate their bigotry. However, the reporter at Deep South Voice tied the owners’ decision to refuse service to the lesbian couple to two religious freedom laws passed in Mississippi in 2014 and 2016.
IMPORTANT: This comes after the MS Legislature passed & Gov. @PhilBryantMS signed 2 “religious freedom” laws—#SB2681 in 2014 & #HB1523 in 2016—making it easier for businesses to discriminate against LGBT people. #MSleg
Supporters said they wouldn’t affect interracial couples.
— Ashton Pittman (@ashtonpittman) September 1, 2019
The 2016 law in question, the Religious Liberty Accommodations Act, was passed in direct response to the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized gay marriage nationwide. The text of the law says it provides protections for people, religious organizations, and private organizations, who choose to provide or withhold services in accordance to the three “deeply held religious beliefs or moral convictions” which are specifically outlined, and clearly do not apply to race. The controversial law claims gender is objective and binary and marriage should be a heterosexual union, among other things.
Whether or not these religious freedom laws fueled the owners’ decision to deny the lesbian couple service is not clear. But one thing is quite clear: The First Amendment and religious freedom laws based on the free exercise and establishment clauses do not exist to perpetuate racial bigotry of any kind. They serve to protect a person’s devout religious faith, and to shield those people from persecution for that faith, which was the very reason the Puritans fled to America in the first place.
It’s one thing to hold to certain religious convictions with earnest desire and steadfast zeal, it’s quite another to use those beliefs as a guise to cover for racism, bigotry, or other vices. While religious freedom laws are meant to protect religious business owners from antagonistic lawsuits, they should never be exploited to fuel hate, ignorance, or mean-spirited business practices. It’s not just morally wrong, but it sets the fight for religious liberty back tremendously.
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.
