The names throughout more than 60 pages of emails released in the legal arguments over House Bill 1523 aren’t easy to keep straight. These are the key players:
- The Mississippi Center for Public Policy is a Jackson-based think tank that advances conservative principles of limited government, free markets, and strong traditional families through helping shape public policy.
- Alliance Defending Freedom is a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Christian nonprofit whose mission includes funding lawsuits and training attorneys to advocate for religious freedom, pro-life and marriage and family issues.
- Austin R. Nimocks was a senior attorney for Alliance Defending Freedom. Nimocks clerked for the Mississippi Supreme Court and Court of Appeals and practiced in Biloxi. Currently, Nimocks is an attorney in the special litigation division of the Texas Attorney General’s office.
- Jameson Taylor supervises public-policy research as a vice president for the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
- Whitney Lipscomb is an attorney for Gov. Phil Bryant.
- Drew Snyder is an attorney for Gov. Phil Bryant.
- Joey Songy is Gov. Phil Bryant’s chief of staff.
- Larry McAdoo, president and CEO of Redemption Outreach Ministries International, wrote several opeds supporting HB 1523.
- Kellie Fiedore is an attorney on ADF’s marriage and family team.
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Per their website, Alliance Defending Freedom “seeks to recover the robust Christendomic theology of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries.” With no shortage of backwards-thinking gumps as lawmakers, sounds like MS was a good place to shape policy.
With so many lawyers and “think tanks,” it’s fascinating that they came up with such poorly-written legislation.