More than 90 writers have publicly stated opposition to the recently-signed religious freedom bill, including Sherman Alexie, this year’s Common Reading Experience author for the University.
Alexie was scheduled to appear in Oxford in August at the freshman convocation. On Friday, Alexie tweeted, “I’m canceling my appearance at Ole Miss and will not make any further appearances in Mississippi until the anti-LGBT law is repealed.”
(Courtesy: ALA.com)
Gov. Phil Bryant signed the Religious Liberty Accommodations Act into law Tuesday, April 5. The legislation preserves the right of organizations and individuals with religious affiliations to discriminate certain persons if it is in accordance with his or her faith practices.
Director of the Department for Writing and Rhetoric Robert Cummings confirmed the cancellation.
“I, too, am disheartened by the anti-American bigotry of HB 1523,” Cummings said in an email. “Though I understand and share Alexie’s frustration at the law, his refusal to speak on our campus unfortunately plays into the hands of the forces of intolerance. I think his time would be well spent speaking to the future leaders of our state, especially our LGBTQ students. Nonetheless, we will continue to work for better future, and teach all students in an atmosphere of inclusion and mutual respect as expressed in our Creed.”
Square Books owner and founder Richard Howorth said Alexie’s cancellation is an example of the harm that can come from this bill.
“We think HB 1523 – regardless of one’s political, legal, or personal views of the matter – will have a chilling effect on businesses in terms of their decision to remain or locate in Mississippi,” Howorth said in an email. “Author events and tourism, which both are important aspects of our own business, also are being put at risk. This is the classic case of Mississippi taking two steps backward, only this time it’s three or four.”
(Courtesy Katy Smith)
Mississippi author Katy Simpson Smith said, after reading the news about the religious bill, she wanted to make her opposition to it public. After writing a statement Thursday night, she reached out to other writers in Mississippi and found they, too, wanted to speak against the legislation. By Monday, Smith had gathered signatures from 95 authors who either hail from or live in Mississippi.
“It was so important to me, and for all of us, to be able to put a voice to something that we had been so upset about,” Smith said.
Bills like this one, Smith said, will ultimately be detrimental to the states that uphold them.
“I think we’re seeing this pattern of backlash against the great social leaps we’ve made as a nation because there are people who inexplicably see difference as a threat to their own ways of life,” Smith said. “But these backlashes aren’t sustainable and will only damage the economies and reputations of states like Mississippi and North Carolina.”
These authors and poets join multiple Mississippi businesses that have recently spoken out against the bill, including AT&T, IBM, Nissan, Tyson Foods and in Oxford, the University of Mississippi, Square Books and Volta Taverna.
Jim Dees, one of the authors who signed the statement, said literature and the arts are an important part of Mississippi business and this bill discourages that business. The number of authors who signed the statement is reflective of how important this issue is to Mississippi artisans, Dees said.
“I was really excited when (Katy) reached out to writers in particular because I think that’s one of the really positive exports of Mississippi, our literature,” Dees said. “The state has turned to our heritage, our culture, our music and our literature to draw people and then, with this legislation, the people who are drawn to our music and literature particularly are going to be offended.”
Dees said the most apt description of the bill he has seen yet is that of Sid Salter of Mississippi State University, who called the bill a “solution in search of a problem.”
“It’s going to hurt businesses in this state, which it’s already started to do,” Dees said.
Julie Cantrell, a Mississippi author who also signed the statement, is a Christian novelist and said this bill does not accurately represent her faith.
(Courtesy Julie Cantrell)
“As a Christian who values freedom for all, I am weary of people doing hateful things in the name of God. My faith tells me God is love,” Cantrell said in an email. “I understand people interpret the scriptures in different ways, but allowing someone to deny another person’s basic human rights for any reason is not only unethical, it is absolutely the opposite of what I believe to be our ultimate commandment: Love one another. To tie this discriminatory legislation to either religion or freedom is as absurd as it gets.”
William Boyle, a New York-born author who has lived in Mississippi for eight years, said this bill was “a profound disappointment and shame.” Boyle agreed this bill would be a detriment to business and would make the LGBTQ community feel unwelcome here.
(Courtesy wmboyle.wordpress.com)
“So many of the people who belong here, who are from here, who contribute to the state in so many ways—as writers, artists, business owners, cooks, servers, filmmakers, musicians, you name it—would feel, I’d say, strong-armed into leaving or, in the least, as if they were not welcome in vast stretches of the state,” Boyle said in an email. “That, to me, would be tragic—both that they’d be made to feel that way, but also that Mississippi would again align itself with injustice and ignorance.”
