CARTOON: “Mississippi Burning”

From Clay Jones on his political cartoon “Mississippi Burning,” the Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act, and Van Halen

Mississippi is about to take a test. The test will determine if they’re more ignorant and ass-backwards than Georgia, and just as much as North Carolina.

Republican lawmakers in Mississippi really hate gay people. Let’s be fair. Maybe they don’t hate gay people. They just realize they can capitalize on their voters’ hatred.

The Mississippi law doesn’t just describe “religious freedom.” It very intentionally points out you can use religion as an excuse to discriminate against anyone who is gay, in a gay marriage, or a “gay lifestyle.”

The bill is called “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act.” which means, you can’t be discriminated against for discriminating against gay folks. The legislation would allow businesses and religious groups to deny the LGBT community certain services such as counseling, wedding planning, and adoption support. It would also protect those groups from punishment if they act “consistent with a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction.” Man, you really gotta hate someone not to take their money. The Soup Nazi could move to Mississippi and literally be a Soup Nazi.

North Carolina just passed a bill targeting transgenders and their use of public bathrooms. Georgia and South Dakota passed similar bills, but their governors said no. I suspect Georgia governor Nathan Deal vetoed it because of business pressure. He really doesn’t want “The Walking Dead” to start filming in another state.

I love Mississippi. My son was born in Mississippi, and he currently lives there. My career started in that state. The Panolian is my journalism education, and I had great teachers whom I still consider family. I love them very much. I made friends in the journalism community all over the state, and my work ran in newspapers from Biloxi on the Gulf Coast to DeSoto County on the Tennessee border. I met a lot of readers in Mississippi. Some of the smartest and most talented people in the world come from Mississippi. Those people are not in the state legislature, which is continuing the stereotype of Mississippi being populated by backward, racists, inbred, toothless hicks who marry their sisters. Thanks, legislature. You would think that with the state’s long, sordid history of racism, the government wouldn’t create new laws to hate.

I really hope this cartoon doesn’t lose me any clients in Mississippi or anywhere else. I should send it to every editor in the state who doesn’t subscribe to my work just to give them an early stir to start their Wednesday morning.

Story time! When I worked at The Free Lance-Star here in Fredericksburg, VA, our editor had a policy that we couldn’t publish any images of a noose. I discovered this by drawing a cartoon, and it being published, with a noose. It’s funny how you learn things. The cool thing was that I didn’t get in trouble. My editor got in trouble. He got a demerit or something like that on an employee evaluation for approving my cartoon. Apparently I was just a monkey boy who wasn’t responsible for his own actions. FLS had a LOT of no-nos I discovered over the years. You’ll be glad to know that after that, I got in trouble plenty of times.

This cartoon was drawn while listening to the first four Van Halen albums. There isn’t a better song to listen to while cross hatching than “Atomic Punk.”

claytoonz.com/2016/04/05/mississippi-burning