JACKSON, MISS. – Following the passage of a bill containing sweeping anti-LGBTQ legislation, Mississippi lawmakers have voted to relocate the state to the wrong side of history, just to make things official.
This week Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant signed into law the “Protecting Freedom of Conscience From Government Discrimination Act”. Bill 1523 allows businesses and government workers to deny services to homosexual or transgendered individuals based on “sincerely held religious beliefs”, Which led state lawmakers to propose relocating the entire state to “smack dab in the middle of the dustbin of history.”
“The time has come for Mississippi to chart a course to our future, by retreating to our our discriminatory past,” announced governor Bryant on the steps of the Mississippi legislature. “There we can take our place among other relics of years gone by, such as Jim Crow laws, alcohol prohibition, and New Coke.”
Bill 1523, named after the year in which its attitudes towards LGBTQ people are modelled, allows religious Mississippians to refuse services, terminate employment, or deny marriage licenses. Once the state is officially situated on the wrong side of history GOP lawmakers believe “the sky will be the limit”, with religious defences for denying services to unwed mothers, banning people from “weird countries”, and accusing gay persons of witchcraft.
Plans originally called for the entire state of Mississippi to be dug out of the earth and airlifted en masse to the wrong side of history. But upon recalling that the state had been ranked 50th in education – dead last in all the United States – lawmakers elected to just tell students the state had moved, and assume no one would ever notice the difference or check.
Following the state’s relocation to the wrong side of history, Mississippi has further announced plans to only broadcast TV shows that decidedly did not stand the test of time, like Joey, The Chevy Chase Show, and Cop Rock. These antiquated shows will begin airing in Mississippi as soon as they can be screened to assure that they contain absolutely no gay content.
Asked what this relocation means for the state of Mississippi, whose state flag actually contains a smaller Confederate flag, Governor Bryant grew philosophical. “It’s about legacy. Years from now I want Mississippians to be able to look back at our great state, and confidently lie about actually being from Alabama or Tennessee because they are ashamed to come from Mississippi.”
At press time, Mississippi was voting to officially change their state motto from “Virtue et Armis” to “No et Homo”.
