BOOK REVIEW: Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles

This is the 6th book in the Penn Cage series and the 3rd book in Greg Iles' Natchez Burning trilogy. Although I loved this series overall I was somewhat disappointed by the concluding entry in the series.

The books are incredibly complex, almost gothic tales of intrigue and suspense, set in the southern city of Natchez, Mississippi in "present day" and in the 1960s. The primary character is Penn Cage, a former criminal prosecutor turned best-selling author who is the son of Dr. Tom Cage, a white doctor who has lived in Natchez all his life and is respected by the white and black citizens of the town alike.

The book (and entire Natchez Burning trilogy) is animated by the secrets Penn's dad is keeping (and has kept) in the context of the explosive (and violent) racial politics of his hometown.

In Mississippi Blood  the primary plot is about the trial of Dr. Cage for the murder of Viola Turner, the beautiful black woman who was Tom's nurse in the 1960s and who was assaulted and raped and eventually exiled from her hometown by an extremely racist group called the Double Eagles (they separated from the Ku Klux Klan because that group wasn't hardcore enough on racial issues!) Viola was dying of cancer and the two had an assisted suicide pact.

My primary issues I had with this book was that the story just became a bit too operatic and unbelievable over time, with plot developments and shocking revelations occurring in the context of an extremely dramatic trial. To be honest, this was probably a weakness of the earlier books as well, but I looked past it because I was so invested in what was happening to the characters in those earlier books. (And all 6 books in the Penn Cage  series are action-packed, emotionally resonant thrillers also.) Because Mississippi Blood  is almost certainly the final book in the Penn Cage series, several bridges have been burned (and primary characters dispatched  in the earlier entries in the trilogy) so that somehow my connection to and interest in these remaining characters seemed less intense.

Overall, Mississippi Blood is a very suspenseful, action-packed, mystery-thriller with thought-provoking and complex racial politics woven throughout and an extremely compelling read.

Title: Mississippi Blood.
Author: Greg Iles.
Paperback: 704 pages.
Publisher: William Morrow.
Date Published: March 21, 2017.
Date Read: May 10, 2017.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★ (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: In Mississippi, New Law Says Religion Trumps Civil Rights

What a shocker! More bad news out of Mississippi regarding civil rights and the equal treatment of all its citizens. Governor Phil Bryant, A Republican, signed House Bill 1523 into law on Tuesday. The bill, which goes into effect in July, is titled "Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act" and purports to provide people with "sincerely held religious beliefs" the right to deny services and public accommodations to certain people. But it is also to support only certain religious beliefs, such as:

The act states that the government cannot penalize an individual, organization, or business for acting according to the following "sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions": that "marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman"; that "sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage"; and that "male (man) or female (woman) refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth."

It looks flagrantly unconstitutional as well as discriminatory to me. It will be interesting to see if the response to Mississippi's bill mirrors the negative response North Carolina and Indiana have received for enacting similiarly bigoted legislation.

Federal Judges Strike Down Marriage Equality Bans In MISSISSIPPI & ARKANSAS!

After two rulings in federal court, the nationwide map for marriage equality now looks like the figure above. In Mississippi and Arkansas federal judges ruled that state bans on issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples are unconstitutional, for different reasons.

Both rulings were put on hold pending appeal. In Mississippi case, the state defendants, Republican Governor Phil Bryant and Republican Attorney General Jim Hood have already filed a notice of appeal to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is already considering appeals bans on marriage equality from Texas and Louisiana. Presumably Arkansas will appeal to the 8th Circuit. All the red states which have legally enforceable bans on marriage equality to date are in either the 5th, 6th or 8th Circuits.

Hat/tip to Joe Jervis

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Mississippi Heritage Amendment Proposed To Declare Christianity "Principal Religion"

Whoa! Mississippi may be considering a state constitutional amendment in 2016 that would, among other things, declare "Christianity" the "principal" religion of the state, and insert the words "Holy Bible" into the founding document of the Magnolia State. The Magnolia State Heritage Amendment reads, in part:

The State of Mississippi hereby acknowledges the fact of her identity as a principally Christian and quintessentially Southern state, in terms of the majority of her population, character, culture, history, and heritage, from 1817 to the present; accordingly, the Holy Bible is acknowledged as a foremost source of her founding principles, inspiration, and virtues; and, accordingly, prayer is acknowledged as a respected, meaningful, and valuable custom of her citizens. The acknowledgments hereby secured shall not be construed to transgress either the national or the state Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

In case you think  I am making this up, here is the official summary of the amendment from the Mississippi Secretary of State's office:

Initiative #46 would amend the Constitution to restrict or define Mississippi’s heritage in the following areas: religion, official language, state flag, nickname, song, motto and state university mascots. Further, the initiative would prevent the consolidation of Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi University for Women, and Mississippi Valley State University, designate the month of April “Confederate Heritage Month,” and reinstate Mississippi’s Constitutional boundaries.

I guess Mississippi does not have the legal requirement that ballot measures restrict themselves to dealing with one topic! Oh, and it also insists that the state government can not offer government services in any other language than English. Is "y'all" English? I guess well find out if the measure qualifies for the ballot and voters get to see the measure in November 2016.

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Republican Congressman Sends Bible To Every Other Member

A Republican Congressman from Mississippi named Steven Palazzo is garnering headlines over his actions of sending a copy of the Bible and a letter to every member of Congress that says "I find that the best advice comes through meditating on God's Word. Please find a copy of the Holy Bible to help guide you in your decision-making."

Has this person never even heard of the concept of separation of church and state?

HRC Launches $8.5M Campaign To Advance LGBT Equality In Deep South

The largest LGBT political advocacy organization in the United States has announced the launch of Project One America, an $8.5 million, 3-year project to advance LGBT equality in the Deep South states of Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas.

There are nine specific goals of Project One America:

1. Empower LGBT people (and straight allies) to come out.
2. Raise the visibility of LGBT people and issues with the general public.
3. Create safer environments for LGBT young people.
4. Build partnerships with faith communities, communities of color, business communities, and conservatives.
5. Create a more inclusive workplace for LGBT people
6. Build support for enduring legal protections that ensure LGBT equality.
7. Expand participation in HRC’s Municipal Equality Index in these three states.
8. Create a more inclusive healthcare environment for LGBT people
9. Equip LGBT people and non-traditional allies as spokespeople

ABC News reports:

The aim is to first change hearts and minds so that people hiding their sexual orientation will be more comfortable about coming out publicly. As that occurs, organizers believe, communities and states will be more likely to adopt laws to prevent discrimination. 

"You overcome all of the objections by having conversations and getting to know your neighbors," Chad Griffin, an Arkansas native and president of Human Rights Campaign, said in an interview with The Associated Press. 

With a checkered history in race relations, Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi resisted civil and voting rights for blacks in the 1960s. And unlike other Southern states, the three still haven't enacted legal safeguards to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation in areas like housing and employment. 

Yet surveys have shown the states have roughly the same percentage of gay residents as other states, Griffin said, and Human Rights Campaign has a total of 57,000 members and supporters in the states, which have a total population of 10.7 million people. 

Organizers hope to accelerate change that already has included four Mississippi towns passing non-binding resolutions against LGBT discrimination. In Alabama, a civil rights museum is currently showing a photo exhibit of LGBT youth aimed at promoting acceptance. 

"The pace of progress really has been fast, but you can't leave anyone behind," said Griffin.

As Vice President Biden would say, this is a BFD. I am curious as to what the local LGBT groups in those states feel about HRC coming in and essentially becoming the statewide LGBT group in each of these states. On one hand, they will build capacity for LGBT equality in the targeted states, but I
find it hard to believe that there was no organizing going on in those states (Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi) before this.

This is a risky but encouraging move for HRC. The South is also the region with the largest African-American fraction of the population and HRC is not known as the most racially diverse or
progressive of organizations so there are bound to be some complications and fractures along race and class lines while the work advances.

But I give them much props for trying, and putting their money where their mouth is.

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Mississippi Adds "In God We Trust" To State Seal

The Mississippi state legislature passed a measure late Tuesday that proponents refer to as a "religious freedom restoration act" but that among other things, would add the words "In God We Trust" to the State Seal and clarify that "sincerely held religious belief " can trump non-discrimination laws, the same kind of law that Governor Jan Brewer vetoed earlier this year.

The ACLU still opposes the legislation:

“Even though the Mississippi legislature removed some of the egregious language from Arizona’s infamous SB 1062, we are disappointed that it passed this unnecessary law and ignored the national, public outcry against laws of this nature,” said Eunice Rho, advocacy and policy counsel with the ACLU.

Why is it that people who are religious believe they need to have "special rights" that people who do not believe in God do not have?

Autopsy Report Released In McMillian Murder

The murder of Marco McMillian shocked the conscience when it was reported a few months ago. A 40-year-old Black gay man's body was found floating in a local levee in Clarksdale, Mississippi, naked, burned and bruised. The FBI announced that they are investigating the circumstances of the death to determine whether it is a hate crime or not.

This weekend details from the autopsy report were released which document the horrific nature of the crime. One key detail is that the previously announced suspect Lawrence Reed has apparently confessed to killing McMillian and dumping his body.

The Advocate summarizes:

Clarksdale mayoral hopeful Marco McMillian “died from a lack of oxygen, but exactly what caused that could not be determined,” the Associated Press reports today. The document from state medical examiner Mark LeVaughn was dated Wednesday. 

“Additional autopsy findings that most likely contributed to his death are multiple areas of blunt force trauma to the head that are consistent with a beating,” LeVaughn wrote. He also said suspect Lawrence Reed “admitted to killing” McMillian and leaving his body near a Mississippi River levee. 

McMillian’s body was found February 27, a day after Reed crashed the candidate’s SUV. The medical examiner’s report also notes there were abrasions, lacerations, and burns on McMillian’s body.

 Now that the facts are coming out we shall be interested to follow the trial and see how the criminal justice system resolves this incident.

FBI Announces Involvement In McMillian Case

The latest news in the murder of Marco McMillian is that the Federal Bureau of Investigation  has announced that it is going to conduct an investigation of the horrifying death of the Black, gay man whose body was found beaten and burned last week. A suspect, Lawrence Reed, has been named in the case.

The action by the FBI is in response to a letter from the National Black Justice Coalition calling for such an investigation, since Mississippi does not have a hate crime law which includes sexual orientation.

NBJC Executive Director Sharon Lettman-Hicks issued a statement:

After speaking extensively with the family, community and anti-violence coalition members like the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), NBJC feels the perpetuation and validation of the “gay panic” defense is irresponsible. The conflicting reports as well as the current racial and anti-LGBT climate in Mississippi is justification enough for a federal investigation. 

NBJC is standing firmly with Marco McMillian’s family so that their concerns do not fall on deaf ears. The details of this case just aren’t adding up. Whether on the basis of race or sexual orientation, hate is hate. If there is the possibility that McMillian was murdered because of who he is, that warrants the Department of Justice’s involvement.

There are conflicting reports about the relationship between the suspect and the victim and concerns have been raised that a "gay panic" defense may be used by the defendant.

Hat/tip to Rod 2.0

Suspect Named In Murder Of MS Black Gay Man

Lawrence Reed, 22, has been charged with the murder of 33-year-old Marco McMillian, the openly gay black man whose body was found in a local river last week. Multiple media outlets have been reporting on the relationship between Reed and McMillian with the Clarion Ledger getting very specific:

Little is known about Reed, 22, except that he graduated from Broad Street High School in the nearby community of Shelby and had since moved into an apartment in Clarksdale. 

Friends of Reed told Memphis television station WPTY that the two recently had met at a Clarksdale bar and became close. Then, sometime either late Monday night or early Tuesday morning, McMillian made sexual advances on Reed, the friends said, adding that Reed is straight. 

The Clarion-Ledger couldn’t reach Reed’s friends, but it’s also the version of events investigators were told. After being hit on, Reed allegedly snapped, strangled McMillian, then drove McMillian’s SUV to the levee west of Clarksdale and tossed his body near the river. 

Friends of McMillian, however, say the two men were romantically involved and quarreled immediately before the slaying.

Hmmmmm, this really is not a good sign. It looks like the people defending Reed are thinking about pursuing a "gay panic" defense, which although it has been banned in California, probably plays reasonably well in front of a Mississippi jury.

Hat/tip to Rod 2.0

Black, Gay Mayoral Candidate Found Dead in Mississippi

Marco McMillian was the first openly gay candidate for political office in the history of the state of Mississippi. The 34-year-old Black gay Democrat was running for Mayor of Clarksdale, Mississippi but his body was found recently in the river!

The 34-year-old McMillian was running for mayor of Clarksdale, a Blues hub where actor and Mississippi native Morgan Freeman co-owns a music club with Howard Stovall, a Memphis entertainment executive, and Bill Luckett, who also is running for mayor.

Meredith said the body was found between Sherard and Rena Lara and was sent to Jackson for an autopsy. He declined to provide further details or speculate on the cause of death.

[...]

McMillian was a Democrat. Campaign spokesman Jarod Keith said McMillian’s campaign was noteworthy because he may have been the first openly gay man to be a viable candidate for public office in Mississippi. 

Clarksdale, a town of about 17,800 people, is well known to Blues fans as the home of the crossroads, where Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul to the devil for skills with a guitar. 

I know the South is not what it was in 1965, but as recently as yesterday there was an oral argument before the Supreme Court where lawyers for a southern county (Shelby County, Alabama) basically argued that the South was changed and that racism would not be an impediment to voting rights and the exercise of minority political power.

Hmmmmm!

Wow! Mississippi Officially Ratifies End Of Slavery

Wow. Mississippi has finally officially ratified the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, thus endorsing the end of involuntary servitude in the United States.

Life really does move slower in the South. One hundred forty-eight years after Congress sent the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery to the states for ratification, Mississippi officially has joined the ranks. 

The state’s Legislature did vote to ratify it in 1995 — but the vote was never made official because lawmakers failed to inform the U.S. archivist, according to a report in the Clarion-Ledger. They’ve finally finished the job, Newser reports, and it’s official: Slavery is unconstitutional in Mississippi.

I guess better late than never!

hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Obama's Vote % of White People and Uneducated

There are some interesting analyses of the presidential vote which illustrate the contours of President Obama's re-election victory and the characteristics of the coalition he brought together to carry him to 332 electoral votes and nearly 51% of the popular vote.

Previously I had blogged about the crucial role of the LGB population (5% of the electorate) voting 76% to 22% for Obama-Biden 2012 but today I want to talk about the people who did NOT vote for the President.

The graphic at the top of this post indicates that all of the top 10 states that have the highest percentages of people with college degrees (MA, MD, CO, CT, VT, NJ, VA, NY, MN) voted for Obama, while 9 of the bottom 10 (WV, MS, AR, KY, LA, AL, IN, TN, OK) voted for Romney-Ryan 2012.

Additionally, Charles Blow in The New York Times noted some other interesting features of the election results:

 This year was the first presidential election in which there were more Asian-American voters (11 percent) in California than African-American ones (8 percent). In 2008, 6 percent were Asian-American and 10 percent were African-American. In fact, there were more Asian-American voters than African-American voters in Washington and Oregon, the other two Pacific Coast states, this year, too. 

[...] 

In fact, Obama won the white vote only in states with small minority voting populations. The others Obama won were Iowa (93 percent white), New Hampshire (93 percent white), Oregon (88 percent white), Connecticut (79 percent white) and Washington State (76 percent white). 

[...] 

 Obama won all four states that begin with “New” (New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York), but he lost all five that begin with a direction (North Carolina, South Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia).

It's interesting that conservatives have been focussing on how how people of color voted for the first Black president but they haven't noticed how places (in)famous for unapologetic racial prejudice voted overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney. For example, Obama won a mere 10% of the white vote in Mississippi.

Hat/tip to Wonder Man and Sentient Meat.

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: A Map of U.S. Religiosity

The Gallup polling organization has this interesting map depicting the relative religiosity of the residents of each of the various States in the Union. Of course the states which stand out are Utah and most of the former Confederacy. (Curious how well correlated past and current racial intolerance and commitment to white supremacy appear to correlate with increased religious belief, isn't it? But I digress.) It turns out that Mississippi is the most religious state (more than 50% of respondents identify themselves are "very racist religious." There are only 5 states in which less than 30% of the respondents describe themselves thusly: Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine and Alaska. (Curiously, 3 of those 5 states have legalized marriage equality, with Maine on its way to doing so this year through a public referendum.)

Why Evolution Is True blog analyzes the data  which shows religiosity of Americans has stayed relatively constant over time (although he makes a slightly different claim):

To me a difference of 81 (very or fairly important) to 19 (not very important) in 2011 is not that different from a 84% (very or fairly important) to 16%, though I guess 3 percentage point movement could be considered noteworthy, if it's not just a blip covered by the margin of error in the poll.

Why Evolution is True focuses on the analysis by Gallup of their data in which they claim that 40% of Americans are "very religious" while 32% of Americans are "nonreligious" and the remaining 28% are "moderately religious." (This last term seems oxymoronic to me, like being "a little bit pregnant.") The blog tries to figure out the discrepancy between the 32% who are nonreligious and the 1.5% who call themselves atheists or agnostic (i.e. like yours truly!) versus the 10% of Americans who say they don't believe in G-d.

Gallup summarizes their overall results with this analysis:

America remains a generally religious nation, with more than two-thirds of the nation's residents classified as very or moderately religious. These overall national averages, however, conceal dramatic regional differences in religiosity across the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Residents of Southern states are generally the most religious, underscoring the validity of the "Bible Belt" sobriquet often used to describe this region. Coupled with the Southern states in the high-religiosity category is Utah, the majority of whose residents are Mormon -- the most religious group in America today. On the other hand, residents of New England and a number of far Western states tend to be the least religious.

Religion is related to politics in today's America, and it is clear from a glance at Gallup's State of the States map that the most religious states in the union generally are the most Republican, while the least religious states skew more toward the Democratic Party. This means that the most divided states -- and thus, those where most of the heavy-duty campaigning in this year's presidential election will be taking place -- are the ones where residents tend to be neither at the very religious nor at the nonreligious end of the spectrum.

The imbrication of religious belief with political ideology in the country is a rather pernicious phenomenon, in my opinion.

POLL: Most AL, MS Republicans Are Racist Idiots

Today is Republican primary election day in Alabma and Mississippi.

Here are some  poll results of questions asked of Republican primary voters in
 Mississippi:

and Alabama:

which indicate that majorities of respondents in those two states do not believe in evolution (66% and 60%) and believe Barack Obama is not a Christian (88% and 86%).

How else can one describe these results but to characterize them as indicators of bigotry and ignorance?

Hat/tip to Dave Weigel of Slate Magazine.

HIV Treatment *IS* HIV Prevention

There's an interesting twist to the news that HIV+ people on anti-retroviral medication have surprisingly low chances of passing the virus on to their sexual partners in this weekend's New York Times column by Charles Blow.

Blow makes the point that the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) has been a victim of both state and federal budget cutting and points out the long-term fiscal irresponsibility of such actions.

According to data from the ADAP Advocacy Association: as of last week, the number of people on ADAP waiting lists had risen to 7,873; between April 2009 and April 2011, 14 states reduced the number and types of drugs they would pay for. A number of states have stiffened financial eligibility requirements, capped enrollment or removed some people already enrolled. Other states are considering doing so.


This is particularly problematic since the National ADAP Monitoring Project’s annual report, released in March, showed that those most dependent on the program are some of society’s most vulnerable. About a third of all people diagnosed with AIDS are enrolled in ADAPs, three-quarters of them had incomes of less than 200 percent of the national poverty level, 61 percent were uninsured, and 55 percent were black or Hispanic.


But as the recession put more patients in need, federal and state aid didn’t keep track. From 2007 to 2010, the number of people using ADAPs jumped by a third, but federal and state funds specifically appropriated for it grew by just 3 percent and 18 percent, respectively.


Not only is it morally reprehensible to restrict or deny life-saving drugs to those who need them (talk about death panels), it is a colossal miscalculation of public health policy, not to mention fiscally irresponsible.


The new findings should help change a paradigm that’s badly in need of changing. Treatment benefits the healthy as well as the sick. It not only prolongs and improves the lives of those who are H.I.V.-positive, but also is a prophylactic for those who aren’t. Everyone wins.


It’s time to expand ADAPs, not diminish them.

It's just amazing how we spend health care dollars in this country. It simply is not rational to be cutting funds for  prevention of any disease, especially when prevention is always cheaper than treatment. In the case of HIV, treatment can also improve prevention of future infections so it should be a no-brainer to increase, not decrease such expenditures. Unless you live in Mississippi, of course.

46% of Mississippi Republicans Oppose Interracial Marriage

The blogosphere is buzzing with the results of a Public Policy Polling poll of Mississippi Republicans showing that a plurality (46%) think interracial marriage should be illegal while only 40% think it should be legal. For information purposes, all laws banning interracial marriage were struck down by a unanimous Supreme Court in the 1967 landmark case Loving v. Virginia.

The self-evident fact that most Mississippi Republicans are bigits is not surprising, what is really interesting is the analysis of which Presidential candidates the Republicans who think "miscegenation" should be illegal support. 

The American Prospect bog TAPPED has the analysis:

We asked voters on this poll whether they think interracial marriage should be legal or illegal- 46% of Mississippi Republicans said it should be illegal to just 40% who think it should be legal. For the most part there aren't any huge divides in how voters view the candidates or who they support for the nomination based on their attitudes about interracial marriage but there are a few exceptions. 

Palin's net favorability with folks who think interracial marriage should be illegal (+55 at 74/19) is 17 points higher than it is with folks who think interracial marriage should be legal (+38 at 64/26.) Meanwhile Romney's favorability numbers see the opposite trend. He's at +23 (53/30) with voters who think interracial marriage should be legal but 19 points worse at +4 (44/40) with those who think it should be illegal.

It's worth noting those 46 percent of Mississippi Republicans who oppose interracial marriage -- and think it should be illegal -- are in the small minority of whites nationwide who oppose race mixin'. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, 75 percent of whites approve of interracial marriages (or at least, those between blacks and whites). That number jumps up to 85 percent for whites between the ages of 18

I would love to see polling of Republicans nationwide on interracial marriage and whether public accommodations (schools, parks, buses, etc) should be racially segregated. But I bet they wouldn't really tell the pollster what they think.

Human Rights Watch Issues Report On Mississippi(!)

The state of Mississippi has long been an embarrassment to the rest of the country, but now the international non-governmental organization (NGO) Human Rights Watch has made it official by issuing a report detailing and decrying the way the state deals with people who are either LGBT or have HIV or both.

From the Executive Summary of "Rights At Risk":

Throughout Mississippi, people living with HIV, their advocates, health providers and public officials describe an extreme stigma surrounding HIV that is, for many, more frightening than the disease itself. Human Rights Watch found that Mississippi laws and policies promote prejudice and discrimination against those vulnerable, and perceived to be vulnerable, to HIV, thereby contributing to the problem. Numerous legal provisions, including constitutional amendments, discriminate against homosexuals and state sex education laws marginalize lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth. In Mississippi, the criminal law penalizes those with HIV for failing to disclose their positive status, an approach that public health experts deem likely to undermine, rather than promote, the public health.

Mississippi’s sex education policies also play a harmful role in the state’s HIV epidemic. The state has the highest rates of sexually transmitted disease (STD) and teen pregnancy in the nation and alarming rates of HIV infection among young black men who have sex with men (MSM). Yet Mississippi’s legislature remains stubbornly committed to failed messages of abstinence in sex education, ignoring evidence that such approaches have little effect on reducing HIV or STD transmission. Despite the fact that students in Mississippi are having sex earlier than in any other state, the state suppresses information about condom use and effectiveness in sex education, denying youth access to accurate and relevant health information that can prevent HIV infection.

The sex education curricula in Mississippi also mandates negative messages about “homosexual activities,” creating hostile school environments for LGBT youth and interfering with their right to health. Combined with other state laws that discriminate against homosexuals, Mississippi promotes a culture of homophobia that, according to state public health officials, endangers the health of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men by keeping them away from HIV testing and treatment services.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Southern US has been particularly devastating for minority communities.Nowhere is the dramatic racial impact of the epidemic more apparent than in the state of Mississippi, where African-Americans are only 37.5 percent of the population, but comprise 76 percent of those newly infected with HIV. Mississippi’s failure to embrace evidence-based approaches in the face of increasing health threats to minority populations conflicts with fundamental principles of human rights.

An alarming rise in HIV infection among young black men who have sex with men recently prompted an investigation by federal and state health authorities, who recommended implementation of comprehensive sex education at an early age in order to increase awareness of risk and to promote condom use as a proven method of prevention. These recommendations have been utterly ignored in the public schools despite evidence that once infected these young men are unlikely to access adequate health care. Similarly, though African-American women have the second-highest HIV infection rate in the state, Mississippi’s “Just Wait” abstinence campaign does not provide evidence-based HIV prevention education to this very vulnerable population.

The factors identified in this report are not the only contributors to the HIV epidemic in Mississippi, an impoverished state with poor rates of overall health, education, and development. Stigma and discrimination, fueled by community attitudes, religious beliefs, and other societal forces are also contributing factors. But government action plays a significant role, and the harmful policies highlighted here undermine efforts to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic and disregard national and international guidelines on best practices for effective management of the disease. These policies combine to create a high-risk environment where it is difficult for many people to avoid HIV infection and to access life-saving treatment and support. If there is to be meaningful progress in access to HIV services, Mississippi’s obligation to protect public health and human rights should be the immediate focus of both federal and state governments.

Hat/tip to Todd Heywood's reporting on this report at the Michigan Messenger.

Mississippi Black Corrections Officer Fired For Being Gay

André Cooley, a corrections officer in Forrest County, Mississippi, was fired recently after his employer discovered he was gay. 


The Clarion-Ledger reports on a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of Cooley against the Sheriff's Department, Sheriff Billy McGee and other jail employees.

The incidents pertinent to the lawsuit began with a 911 call placed by Cooley on June 14, requesting help in a domestic disturbance.

A Hattiesburg Police Department report lists Cooley as the victim and describes his male companion as the assailant. The complaint states Bolton also responded to the call and ordered Cooley to report to his immediate supervisor before returning to work after learning of the two men's relationship.

McGee on Monday said he stood by the decision to fire Cooley.

"He got in a fight with his boyfriend, and the police were called to his house for a domestic disturbance," McGee said. "Those kinds of incidents don't speak well for people in law enforcement." 

[...]  

According to the complaint, Cooley obtained a copy of the police report on June 15, saw he was listed as a victim acting in self-defense and began trying to reach Bolton. He instead reached Brannon, and Brannon told him he was to be terminated because of the "type of situation" in which he was involved.

The complaint also states Brannon told Cooley he was fired because of his sexual orientation, and that Brannon later told Cooley's former co-workers that he was fired because he "turned out to be a faggot," according to the lawsuit, which represents one side of a legal dispute.

The Sheriff's Department also contested Cooley's application for unemployment benefits. A decision from the Mississippi Department of Employment Security dated July 21 says Cooley "displayed inappropriate conduct and behavior while off-duty, unacceptable for any officer."

[...].

"What makes things particularly difficult in Mississippi is that there's no federal or state law forbidding discrimination (on grounds of sexual orientation)," [Cooley's lawyer] Atwood said.

Here is a video of an interview with Coooley discussing the lawsuit.