Businesses in Mississippi are trying to counter the state’s negative public image in the wake of the passage of Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which gives businesses the legal ability to discriminate against customers based on religion.
They are posting decals in their storefronts reading, “If You’re Buying, We’re Selling,” according to the Clarion Ledger:
Eddie Outlaw, who owns William Wallace Salon and Fondren Barber Shop, was part of the creative team behind If You’re Buying, with Mitchell Moore, who owns Campbell’s Bakery in Fondren.
“A lot of us were trying to counter the negative stuff from outside Mississippi,” Outlaw said, referring to the national coverage 2681 got while it circulated the Capitol. “We wanted to let people know – not just the LGBT community but the progressive community as a whole – that this doesn’t represent everybody here.”
To drive that point home, participating businesses will display in their storefront windows a vinyl, sticker-like circle that reads, “We don’t discriminate. If you’re buying, we’re selling.”
The LGBT rights group Equality Mississippi is providing the decals (pictured here), and says hundreds of businesses have signed up to receive one.
With a name like Eddie Outlaw, how could I not Google him? He’s the subject of A Mississippi Love Story, “the working title of a short documentary that takes a poignant glimpse into the lives, relationships and politics of life-partners Eddie Outlaw and Justin McPherson, at a time when citizens in Mississippi and across the nation were watching and waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Defense of Marriage Act case. The time to leave Mississippi has passed for Eddie and Justin. They are committed to staying and making Jackson a thriving place for the gay community to live and, hopefully, in which to marry one day.”
The trailer is below:
Yep, I’m buying.
