Religious Freedom in Mississippi
May 23, 2014
Baptist pastor and Mississippi state senator Phillip Gandy recently sponsored and the legislature passed a religious freedom restoration act “to protect people of faith from having their religious freedoms violated,” says Gandy. But others see it as an attempt to legalize discrimination under the pretext of religion, or to insulate the state’s Christian residents from the changes in LGBT civil rights occurring across the country. “It’s aiming at keeping government in its place,” Gandy explains. But National Council of Churches president and general secretary Jim Winkler describes it as “a rearguard action by those concerned by changes taking place in society.”
LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: At the Liberty Baptist Church in Waynesboro, Mississippi, Phillip Gandy has been pastor for 24 years. He says God and his congregation wanted him to run for the State Senate because …
SENATOR PHILLIP GANDY: There are some real encroachments on religious freedom in America. Since, say, the sixties we began to see a feeling by people of faith, primarily Christians, that there is a, maybe a hostility that has developed over the years toward Christianity.
SEVERSON: So Mississippi State Senator Gandy, with strong support from his congregation, sponsored and pushed through a law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, also known as RFRA. It’s similar in purpose to a controversial bill that was rejected by Arizona’s governor.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2014/05/23/may-23-2014-religious-freedom-mississippi/23137/
Full transcript and 8:14 video at link.
