A federal judge on Thursday ruled [opinion, PDF] that a Mississippi law allowing for religious objections to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community is unconstitutional [AP report]. HB 1523 [text], set to go into effect Friday, sought to protect three religious beliefs: “(a) Marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman; (b) Sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage; and (c) Male (man) or female (woman) refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.” The bill would have allowed court clerks, businesses, and private persons to invoke religious exceptions in defense of discriminatory treatment. Judge Carlton Reeves of the US District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi [official website] granted the plaintiffs’ requst for preliminary injunction and declared the bill unconstitutional based on the Establishment Clause, religious freedom, and equal protection. Reeves stated:

Religious freedom was one of the building blocks of this great nation, and after the nation was torn apart, the guarantee of equal protection under law was used to stitch it back together. But HB 1523 does not honor that tradition of religion freedom, nor does it respect the equal dignity of all of Mississippi’s citizens. It must be enjoined.

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant [official profile] has stated that he does not agree with the outcome and intends to pursue an appeal.

The challenge to HB 1523 came after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Mississippi [advocacy websites] filed a federal lawsuit [JURIST report] in May challenging the bill and seeking the same injunctive relief. The LGBT community continues to face legal challenges everywhere. The US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana [official website] on Thursday struck down [JURIST report] the state’s parenthood statute for violating the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Last month a judge from Multnomah County Circuit Court [official website] in Oregon ruled [JURIST report] that an individual’s gender could be legally changed from from female to non-binary. Also last month, Bleu Copas and Caleb Laieski filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] in the Chancery Court for Anderson County challenging a Tennessee law that protects counselors who refuse to provide services to individuals based on their religious beliefs. In May the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] challenging North Carolina’s controversial House Bill 2.