{"id":122307,"date":"2014-05-10T11:00:29","date_gmt":"2014-05-10T15:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/?p=122307"},"modified":"2014-08-29T13:32:21","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T17:32:21","slug":"getting-a-feel-for-the-whole-elephant-in-that-mississippi-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/05\/getting-a-feel-for-the-whole-elephant-in-that-mississippi-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting a feel for the whole elephant in that Mississippi law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

You know that ancient story about the blind men groping their way<\/a> around an elephant? Well, sometimes the men are also unaware of each other \u2014 even here at GetReligion.<\/p>\n

Last weekend I saw an AP story<\/a> about the reaction to Mississippi\u2019s new religious freedom law. Gay businessmen and their friends took such offense, they started putting up blue window stickers in protest \u2014 even though the law said nothing about homosexuality.<\/p>\n

\u201cWow, this\u2019ll be fun to carve apart,\u201d I thought, not realizing that Bobby Ross Jr. had already done so<\/a>. The article I read was a repost of the one he saw.<\/p>\n

Yet our reviews offer different views on the partial blindness in Mississippi \u2014 and how the AP didn\u2019t help clear things up before quoting the protesters.<\/p>\n

First off, a favorite complaint of mine: balance. The AP cites three sources on the gay side, one from the opposition. And that one is an out-of-stater: Tony Perkins of the Washington, D.C.-based American Family Association. Nor, as Bobby and I both note, does the reporting (or editing) explain why gays fear a law that doesn\u2019t mention them.<\/p>\n

As the article says, it\u2019s a close mirror of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed by Clinton in 1993. Gays and their straight friends are simply taking pre-emptive action:<\/p>\n

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) \u2014 In conservative Mississippi, some business owners who support equal treatment for gays and lesbians are pushing back against a new law that bans government from limiting the free practice of religion.<\/p>\n

Critics fear the vaguely written law, which takes effect July 1, will prompt authorities to look away from anti-gay actions that are carried out in the name of religious beliefs \u2014 for example, photographers refusing to take pictures for same-sex couples because they believe homosexuality is a sin.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of businesses, from hair salons to bakeries and art galleries, have started displaying round blue window stickers that declare: \u201cWe don\u2019t discriminate. If you\u2019re buying, we\u2019re selling.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sticker campaign started this month in response to Republican Gov. Phil Bryant\u2019s signing the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act.<\/p>\n

The law says government cannot put a substantial burden on religious practices, without a compelling reason.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Granted, the lede tries to limit the article to the blue-sticker campaign. I wonder if that was to avoid having to cite all sides for the sake of a simpler story? Well, it doesn\u2019t give us a complete view of public reaction to the law. It\u2019s a better gauge of the AP\u2019s reaction.<\/p>\n

And the reaction, of course, of gay merchants in Mississippi:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While it does not specifically mention gays or lesbians, \u201cPeople are going to take it as permission, if you will, to discriminate against people they don\u2019t necessarily agree with or like,\u201d said Jackson hair salon owner Eddie Outlaw, 42, who went out of state to marry his husband.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a long and well-documented history of discrimination in this state,\u201d Outlaw said. \u201cTo think there won\u2019t be any discrimination is laughable.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At this point, some persistent questioning \u2014 once a staple of reporting \u2014 would have come in handy. If the law doesn\u2019t cite gays, how do you know it\u2019s aimed at you? And if people have already discriminated against gays in Mississippi, how will another law give them \u201cpermission\u201d to do it?<\/p>\n

After all, as the article itself points out, the state outlawed same-sex marriage a decade ago, with 86 percent of its voters approving. The AP also notes that the state hate-crimes law does not cover acts committed against gays and lesbians.<\/p>\n

The story should have mentioned regular criminal law, though. Even in Mississippi, I\u2019ll bet, you can be jailed if you beat someone up or trash his store, gay or straight.<\/p>\n

AP also trots out sympathizers with Eddie Outlaw and other gays. One of them is the perfect subject \u2014 a straight Republican who uses God talk:<\/p>\n

Mitchell Moore owns Campbell\u2019s Bakery, which is just up a hill from Outlaw\u2019s salon. Moore helped create the \u201cWe don\u2019t discriminate\u201d sticker campaign, though he jokingly calls himself an \u201cinterloper\u201d because he\u2019s not gay. Moore, a Republican, said he\u2019s angry because he believes Bryant and legislators are presuming to speak for the business community, and he said emphatically that they\u2019re not.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a straight, white, Southern, Christian conservative male,\u201d Moore said. \u201cI don\u2019t understand why Christians consider one sin worse than another sin.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A \u201cstraight, white, Southern, Christian conservative male\u201d who breaks with the orientation of other straight, white, Southern, Christian conservative males. This is, of course, the Protestant equivalent of a \u201cdevout Catholic\u201d \u2014 another favorite media trope \u2014 who blithely contradicts Catholic basics.<\/p>\n

AP also quotes a Maine transplant who criticizes Christians for condemning homosexuality. She also quotes an unnamed friend who who told her: \u201d \u2018Oh, my God. We\u2019re going to be Arizona.\u2019\u00a0 \u201d<\/p>\n

See, this is what gays and their friends fear in Mississippi: a repeat of laws like the one in Arizona, which would allow businesses to shun gays. Some liberals get so militant about this, they\u2019ll threaten to boycott business owners merely for disagreeing about homosexuality \u2014 as they did<\/a> last month in a neighborhood in Portland, Ore.<\/p>\n

Yet the law in Mississippi is different, as AP says:<\/p>\n

An early version of the Mississippi bill was similar to the one vetoed in Arizona. The final version, however, had been changed to only specify that government could not put a burden on religious practices, without a compelling reason. Portions that would\u2019ve allowed private businesses to refuse service were removed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Soooo, why didn\u2019t AP tell that to the sources, <\/em>and then<\/em> ask what they thought of it? The article might have hung together better.<\/p>\n

And, as I suggested earlier: Mississippians who approve the law should have been in the story, too. As AP notes, it\u2019s a conservative state, which banned same-sex marriage and didn\u2019t extend special hate-crimes coverage to gays. Some folks from the majority should have been asked their views \u2014 both of the law and the blue-window sticker campaign.<\/p>\n

You already know Bobby\u2019s view \u2014 and now mine \u2014 of the AP\u2019s story.<\/p>\n

Picture: From Martha Adelaide Holton & Charles Madison Curry,<\/em> Holton-Curry readers, Rand McNally & Co. (Chicago), p. 108. Public domain picture via Wikimedia.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You know that ancient story about the blind men groping their way around an elephant? Well, sometimes the men are also unaware of each other \u2014 even here at GetReligion. Last weekend I saw an AP story about the reaction to Mississippi\u2019s new religious freedom law. Gay businessmen and their friends took such offense, they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1568,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,75,46,966,7,12,106,4,1],"tags":[811,15475,3125,3222],"class_list":["post-122307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-and-economy","category-ethics","category-first-person","category-gays","category-journalism","category-religion","category-religious-liberty","category-social-issues","category-uncategorized","tag-associated-press","tag-gays","tag-mississippi","tag-religious-freedom-restoration-act"],"yoast_head":"\nGetting a feel for the whole elephant in that Mississippi law<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You know that ancient story about the blind men groping their way around an elephant? 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