Mississippi bill: OK to not help with same-sex marriage

(AP) — State officials, private business owners and others who provide services to the public couldn't be punished for acting on religious beliefs that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, under a bill advancing in the Mississippi Legislature.

Representatives on Friday voted 80-39 to pass House Bill 1523, which also specifies people couldn't be punished for acting on beliefs that only married couples should have sexual relations and that a person's gender identity is set at birth.

Rep. Andy Gipson, R-Braxton, an attorney and Baptist minister, said the bill wouldn't undo last summer's U.S. Supreme Court decision that effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide but would balance that decision with people's First Amendment right to act on their own beliefs.

The bill also says the state could not punish religious organizations that refuse to place children with gay parents and that the state could not punish adoptive or foster parents based on the beliefs the parents use to raise a child.

Rob Hill, director of the gay-rights group Human Rights Campaign Mississippi, said gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender adoptive or foster children could be subjected to coercive "conversion therapy."