Not surprisingly, this bill passed the MS House on 3/13. There were ZERO nays in either chamber…again, surprise, surprise. Now off to the rabidly conservative, lame-duck governor for his rubber stamp.

Go on welfare? That’s a JOKE! As a single man with no dependents in TN I am blessed to even get my $192/month in food stamp benefits. There isn’t crap out there in the way of public assistance for a single male with no kids. Period. All we get is flipped off at every turn.

Sadly we in the south are in the “Bible Belt” where fake Christians are the rule of the day. I am blessed to worship with true Christians who believe the laws that keep me unemployable and marked for life are ridiculous. I have a great support system in place with my church family. Maybe we need more REAL CHRISTIANS WHO UNDERSTAND THE BIBLE’S TEACHING ON REDEMPTION AND FORGIVENESS in office.

Robert, can you also do that for folks just to the north in Tennessee, please?

My main issue is the annual Halloween curfew for us registrants who are on community supervision for life. This curfew runs for 11 days from 6 pm to 6 am. I faithfully attend church every time the doors are opened year round. During curfew I have to miss 1 or 2 Wednesday night Bible study assemblies. Offenders who work nights can break curfew to work, but Christians can’t go to evening services. That’s a direct violation of my 1st Amendment right to the free exercise of my faith.

I’m just to the north in Tennessee. We aren’t facing that kind of bill….YET, but we have a problem with our chapter of the ACLU not wanting to touch any sex offender rights issues.

I have contacted the TN ACLU before with regards to my religious freedom being unconstitutionally abridged by the annual 11-day Halloween curfew that applies to offenders under T.D.O.C. community supervision and their canned response is “Challenges to sex offender laws have been largely unsuccessful. Therefore, we must choose carefully what we spend our limited resources on.”

I even contacted the national chapter over the lack of help from the state chapter and never heard squat out of it.

Sadly the only justice for registrants comes when one has the money to hire a skilled private attorney who knows how to frame the legal argument properly.

I am a regular listener to “Registry Matters” and the point Larry repeatedly makes is states can do what they want legislatively until they stop of their own volition or are taken to court and ruled against. Only when the courts make the state back off will they do so.

I agree. The upside is this law might push those on the registry to get more involved in the fight against these kind of laws. I help by training (for free) those on the registry and their family members on how to fight back politically on the ground in the community and make a good living while doing it. It’s fun.

Nonsense man, give them in an inch and they will always take it up a level.

Really? Why would Drunken Ron venture two States over for this (relatively) weak addition to MS’s SORA? Seems Drunken Ron has a few other things on his plate right now versus lobbying a rabidly conservative State on passing legislation as such.

Not saying it didn’t happen, it just seems peculiar.

That’s pretty much the entire purpose (unspoken intent, if you will) of the bill – to prevent anyone from hiring registrants.

Were there numerous reports of registrants reoffending at their places of employment? Was there a spike in sexual recidivism among registrants at all? What exactly was the inspiration behind this legislation?

Absent any other explanation, I would argue that this bill is nothing more than evidence of a legislative body whose compulsion to write more SO laws is comparable to the proven mythological urges they claim registrants have to commit more sex crimes. Honestly, can any legislature in the US go one single session without writing more SO laws based on purely on phantasms and without any hard evidence or statistics to show their necessity? Guessing not.