Mississippi says this is not a person.
A
fun note on yesterday's defeat of the "personhood" initiative in Mississippi:
Mississippi seemed the natural place to go—the most conservative state in the nation, which also elected Phil Bryant, the Republican lieutenant governor and co-chair of the Yes on 26 campaign, to succeed Haley Barbour as governor. This would be the man who Monday evoked the Jews of Nazi Germany "being marched into the oven," and who said of 26's opponents, "the evil dark side that exists in this world is taking hold. And they're saying, what we want you to be able to do is continue to extinguish innocent life. You see, if we could do that, Satan wins." Oppose 26, Bryant argued, and "you're on the side of the lie. You're on the side of taking the lives of innocent children."
Apparently, at least some of them were also on the side of electing Phil Bryant, since he got 61 percent of the vote last night. Awkward.
Satan and Phil Bryant won last night. With the same voters. Not that you're going to hear him bring that up today. But thanks, Mississippi, for not being totally crazy (though you maybe could have done better than Bryant).
The Bible belt has spoken, as has Colorado—twice—in rejecting this insanely extreme law. Unfortunately, though, this one isn't going away. Not when you've got fanatics like Bryant out there.