Southern Miss cancelled three February home games versus Stony Brook University after becoming aware of New York’s Mississippi travel ban. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo banned all nonessential travel to Mississippi due to the signing of HB1523 in April 2016.
Commonly known as the “religious freedom law” or the “gay marriage law,” HB1523 allows business owners to refuse service to those not aligned with their personal religious beliefs that target the LGBTQ community without repercussions from the government.
The bill states, “Marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman; sexual relations are properly reserved to such marriage; and male (man) or female (woman) refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.