HUFFINGTON
11.10.13
STONEWALLED
last year, a state-owned agriculture and forestry museum in Jackson refused a same-sex couple’s
request to hold a commitment
ceremony on its grounds. In 2004,
the same year that Massachusetts became the first state in the
country to allow gay and lesbian
couples to marry, 86 percent
of Mississippi voters passed an
amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriages.
Legal groups that support gay
rights are increasingly focused
on instances of discrimination in
places like Shannon, where voters and legislators are unlikely
to pass laws to protect their gay
citizens. Last month, Newton and
the Southern Poverty Law Center,
a prominent civil rights organization, filed a lawsuit accusing the
town and its current and former
aldermen of unconstitutionally
discriminating against gays. They
accused the mayor of starting the
petition and of conspiring with
the aldermen and the townspeople to foil Newton’s plans.
The town’s lawyer declined to
comment on the matter, and the
six current and former aldermen
named in the suit did not respond
to repeated attempts to reach
them for comment.
The day after the lawsuit was
filed, Shannon Mayor Ronnie
Hallmark sat behind his desk
at the town hall with his arms
crossed. Hallmark, who owns a
furniture manufacturing company
in town, first told this reporter
“In opening and
maintaining the bar,
Newton intends to
convey a particularized
message: it is okay to be
openly gay, and LGBT
people are due an equal
and respected place
in the community.”
that he was not aware of the lawsuit and then said he would not
comment on pending litigation.
“I don’t know anything about the
matter,” he said. “And besides, it
really wasn’t up to me.”
Shannon’s main commercial
strip is a flat, lonely stretch of twolane highway scattered with plain
gray buildings. It has an auto body
shop, a liquor store, a sports bar, a
darkened fried chicken establishment, a produce stand, a grocery
that sells loose cigarettes and a
number of boarded up buildings
and gas stations without pumps.