IT STANDS

Supreme Court Won't Take Up Anti-LGBT Mississippi Law

Allows businesses to deny services and clerks to deny marriage licenses to gay people.

The Supreme Court will not hear challenges to a recently enacted Mississippi law that allows local businesses and county clerks to discriminate against LGBT people. The 2016 law, which took effect in October, was met with fierce opposition over its power to let clerks deny marriage licenses to gay couples. But the Supreme Court announced Monday that it would not take up those opponents’ case, thereby allowing the law to stand. Lower courts previously let the law stand without ruling on its merits, because they said the law's opponents had failed to prove the law would harm them. Those opponents are expected to introduce a new challenge, which could find its way to the Supreme Court.