Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant signed House Bill 1523 into law Tuesday. The new law, which is a sort of strengthening of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2014, allows businesses, individuals and organizations the right to deny service to members of the LGBT community, single mothers, transgender individuals and anyone else whose lifestyle offends the deeply religious.

This bigoted, draconian law specifically targets the transgender community by only recognizing genders assigned at birth. By using the guise of “religious freedom” to discriminate against those of different sexual orientations and those who do not share a fundamentalist view of sexuality, the state of Mississippi once again finds itself at the heart of discrimination in America.

This Jim Crow style legislation serves to provide religious freedom to only one religion in the state: fundamentalist Christianity. Instead of recognizing that freedom of religion is the same as freedom from religion, Mississippi has allowed for the legal spread of bigotry, hatred and discrimination. While far from the only state with such unconstitutional policies toward people of different beliefs and sexualities, House Bill 1523 serves as the latest in a line of right-wing attempts to rob individuals of their right to self-expression and their right to consensual love.

The irony of the bill is that it attempts to reinforce the deeply held religious beliefs on sexuality in a state that has the third highest teen pregnancy rate in the country. In 2012, approximately 13 babies were born to teenage mothers every day. This makes the idea of Mississippi as a sort of fundamental safe haven all the more laughable.

The bill itself goes beyond travails like wedding license and cakes. HB 1523 would allow the denial of housing, essential services and needed care to the 60,000 LGBT residences of the state — not to mention the innumerous amount of single mothers. It is apparently more important to fundamentalist Christians in Mississippi to protect their false sense of religious superiority than to actually follow the teachings of Christ — those teaching being ones of acceptance, tolerance and kindness.

Instead of housing the homeless and feeding the hungry, Mississippi legislators are more interested in putting members of the LGBT community at every disadvantage they can find. This hypocritical, un-Christ like view of faith only serves to point out the ridiculousness of anti-LGBT arguments.

Individual religious belief is important; no one is denying that. But what is equally as important is giving everyone, no matter their belief, sexuality or gender an equal chance. By legalizing the denial of rights to a certain group of people, Mississippi has spit in the face of the words “All Men Are Created Equal.”