In Mississippi the state’s governor Phil Bryant has just signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (SB 2681), a piece of legislation that effectively grants business owners the right to refuse service to anyone to whom they object on religious grounds. In America this is called ‘free exercise of religion’. It also looks remarkably like government-sanctioned discrimination.

At times it can feel as though some of those charged with passing legislation in the US are blissfully unaware that the First Amendment to their country’s Constitution exists; at others it can feel as though they are perfectly willing to twist its sentiment beyond all recognition.

SB 2681 will go into effect on July 1 but it has triggered a backlash from a large number of local businesses, many of which are determined to serve each and every customer that enters their premises.

David Badash writes on ‘The New Civil Rights Movement’ website:

The bill could allow a pharmacist to refuse to sell contraception to a particular person, and could allow a child to tell a fellow student perceived as being gay they are going to hell — and cite the law as their right to continuously bully and harass them. The bill could also be used by a corporation to refuse to pay for certain medical procedures via its health insurance program, like abortion or birth control, as in the Hobby Lobby case currently before the Supreme Court.

Badash also draws to attention the involvement of prominently anti-gay campaigners like Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, which fights to uphold the definition of marriage to apply only to a man and a woman.

The First Amendment serves in part to clarify that religion is not above the law but must remain the preserve of individuals, and to permit the free expression of faith in so far as it does not impinge on the rights of others. In the case of Mississippi’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the freedom of the religious is indeed being preserved – but to the extent that it very noticeably impinges upon the rights of others.

The freedom being protected in the bill is the freedom to discriminate on no grounds other than religion; in a country that is avowedly secular, this is a grave step backwards and could lead to a number of depressing lawsuits and confrontations. Where one person’s free exercise of religion has a direct impact upon the rights of another – for example the right to receive service in a shop – the First Amendment must be invoked so that religion is not being unduly privileged.