US Supreme Court rejects challenge to Mississippi law allowing refusal of service to gays

The US Supreme Court on Monday ended the first legal challenge to a Republican-backed Mississippi law that permits businesses and government employees to refuse to serve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people because of their religious beliefs.

The justices left in place a June ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals that the plaintiffs – same-sex couples, civil rights advocates including the head of the state NAACP chapter, a church and others – did not have legal standing to bring the lawsuit.

The law, passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature and signed by Republican Governor Phillip Bryant with the backing of conservative Christian activists, has not yet been implemented and more legal challenges are expected, according to gay rights lawyers.

“We will keep fighting in Mississippi until we overturn this harmful law, and in any state where anti-gay legislators pass laws to roll back LGBT civil rights,” said Beth Littrell, a lawyer with gay rights group Lambda Legal.

People who are refused service once the law is in place may be more likely to be judged to have legal standing to sue.

The 2016 law was passed in the aftermath of the US Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 ruling legalising same-sex marriage nationwide.