Brian Brown, the president of the
National Organization for Marriage (NOM), is calling on Mississippi
Governor Phil Bryant to sign an anti-gay bill approved by lawmakers.
House Bill 1523 would protect
individuals – a broad category which could include certain
businesses – who act on their religious objections to marriage
equality and transgender people. It would protect people who believe
that “sexual relations are properly reserved” for married
heterosexual couples and that a person's sex is “objectively
determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.”
In
an email to supporters, Brown said that the law was needed to
stop LGBT activists who are bent on forcing all Americans to
“genuflect at the altar of gay 'rights.'”
“All across America, LGBT extremists
are working overtime to force devout Christians and other people of
faith to personally participate in celebrating a same-sex 'marriage'
even when doing so violates their deeply held religious beliefs,”
Brown wrote. “This must stop, and at least in Mississippi it will
stop if you act today.”
Brown also criticized the campaign
calling on Bryant to veto the bill, calling it “manufactured
outrage.”