Mississippi followed suit a few weeks later by passing an even harsher “religious liberty” bill, HB 1523, that allows employers to fire LGBT people and businesses to deny them service based on “sincerely held religious beliefs.” North Carolina recently filed a lawsuit against the federal government to ensure its bill remains in place, after the Obama administration stated that HB 2 violates civil rights law. In so doing, that legislation, known as House Bill 2, forced transgender people to use the public restroom that corresponds with the sex they were assigned at birth, rather than their gender identity. In March, North Carolina made national headlines when its state government called an “emergency session” of congress to push through a law that struck down local nondiscrimination laws across the state. The Magnolia State, in particular, shows a disproportionate preference for black gay porn, while the South boasted three of the top five states with the highest rate of gay porn viewership. The Daily Dot reports that Mississippi ranked third (behind Washington, D.C., and New York) in a recent PornHub survey on the amount of porn consumed by state. As statistics from PornHub show, congressmen might be legislating against queer and trans people, but their constituencies sure do love to watch them have sex. Mississippi and North Carolina recently passed some of the harshest laws in the nation targeting the LGBT community.
