95 Mississippi writers speak out against the state's anti-LGBT law

Authors speak out against discrimination.

(Image credit: BAS CZERWINSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

published 11 April 2016

A group of 95 Mississippi writers — including John Grisham, Ralph Eubanks, and Donna Tartt — signed a letter Monday calling for the repeal of Mississippi's newly enacted anti-LGBT law. Under the law, businesses can refuse services to same-sex couples, citing religious freedom.

The writers argued:

Mississippi authors have written through pain, and they have written out of disappointment, but they have also written from wonder, and pride, and a fierce desire to see the politics of this state live up to its citizens. It is deeply disturbing to so many of us to see the rhetoric of hate, thinly veiled, once more poison our political discourse. But Gov. Phil Bryant and the Mississippi legislators who voted for this bill are not the sole voices of our state. There have always been people here battling injustice. That's the version of Mississippi we believe in, and that's the Mississippi we won't stop fighting for. [Jackson Free Press]

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Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.