Lawsuit Challenges Mississippi's New Freedom of Conscience Law

ACLU of Mississippi announced yesterday that it has filed suit against the state's Registrar of Vital Records on its own behalf and on behalf of a same-sex couple challenging recently enacted Mississippi H.B. 1523, the Freedom of Conscience From Government Discrimination Act.  While the Act broadly protects various actions of government and private businesses based on religious or moral beliefs that marriage is a union of one man and one woman, that sexual relations should be reserved to heterosexual marriage, or that gender is an immutable characteristic determined at birth (see prior posting), the lawsuit largely focuses on provisions allowing county clerks to recuse themselves from issuing marriage licences. The complaint (full text) in Alford v. Moulder, (SD MS, filed 5/9/2016) seeks declaratory and injunctive relief that the law violates the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment.  It argues that the requirement for the Registrar of Vital Records to keep a list of those who have opted out of performing same-sex marriages amounts to creation of a "no-same-sex couples allowed" list.  Alluding to the other provisions of the law, the complaint adds:

HB 1325 subjects same-sex married couples in Mississippi to a lifetime of potentially humiliating denials of ordinary assistance and places a badge of inferiority upon their marriages each time they celebrate one of the ordinary incidents of family life.