Activists: ‘It’s illegal to be openly gay’ in Mississippi
[div class="excerpt"By David Edwards
Friday, March 2, 2012 14:19 EST
Police in Jackson, Mississippi on Thursday threatened to arrest LGBT activists for marching on the sidewalk, citing “safety concerns” and a lack of permit for the demonstration.
GetEQUAL Mississippi lead organizer Zach Magee told Raw Story that the group applied for a permit but was denied, for reasons he suspects have to do with discrimination.
“It just seems to me that if it had been a different group or if had been anything else then it wouldn’t have been an issue,” Magee said. “You know, we do live in Mississippi. … It’s probably because it was a gay equality march.”
A provocatively worded press release from GetEQUAL had asserted on Thursday that police told “LGBT Mississippians it’s illegal to be openly gay in the state.”
“The headline was more or less a euphemism for what happened,” Magee explained. “In them telling us that we couldn’t march, that’s kind of indirectly what they told us.”
“The cops told us as we were getting out on the sidewalk, they were like, ‘If you walk on the sidewalk, we’re taking you to jail,’” he recalled.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/02/activists-it’s-illegal-to-be-openly-gay-in-mississippi/
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