Source: Larry French / Getty
Michelle Obama used her platform at a Jackson State University commencement speech to address the state’s recently passed “religious freedom” bill, ABC reports.
The bill promises that the government will not punish people who refuse to provide services to people because of a religious opposition to same-sex marriage, extramarital sex or transgender people, NPR describes.
The bill became a hot button topic, after many members of the LGBTQ community dragged the piece of legislation for being discriminatory.
“We see it right here in Mississippi –just two weeks ago– how swiftly progress can hurtle backward,” Obama said of the bill. “How easy it is to single out a small group and marginalize them because of who they are and who they love.”
“So we’ve got to stand side by side with all our neighbors—straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender; Muslim, Jew, Christian, Hindu immigrant, Native American– because the march for civil rights isn’t about African Americans, it’s about all Americans,” she said. “It’s about making things more just, more equal, more free for all our kids and grandkids. That’s the story you all have the opportunity to write. That’s what this historic university has prepared you to do.”
It’s fitting that Michelle deliver such profound words to the country’s next generation of leaders and visionaries.
Hopefully hearing that message from one of the most powerful figures in America right now will stir them to undo the injustices occurring in their very own state.
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FLOTUS Slams Mississippi’s “Religious Freedom” Bill In Commencement Speech was originally published on hellobeautiful.com
