For North Carolina and Mississippi, the hits just keep on coming. More appropriately, the hitmakers keep leaving. Just days after Bruce Springsteen wrote an impassioned plea against North Carolina’s HB 2, now Bryan Adams is doing the same over Mississippi’s HB 1523. The bill allows businesses, individuals, and religious organizations to deny service to LGBT people, single mothers and anyone else who manages to offend someone’s “sincerely held religious belief.”
Last night Bryan Adams cancelled his April 14th concert, which was scheduled to happen at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi. Like Springsteen, he expressed his views via Facebook:
“Mississippi has passed anti-LGBT ‘Religious Liberty’ bill 1523. I find it incomprehensible that LGBT citizens are being discriminated against in the state of Mississippi. I cannot in good conscience perform in a State where certain people are being denied their civil rights due to their sexual orientation. Therefore i’m cancelling my 14 April show at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum.
“Using my voice I stand in solidarity with all my LGBT friends to repeal this extremely discriminatory bill. Hopefully Mississippi will right itself and I can come back and perform for all of my many fans. I look forward to that day. – Bryan Adams #stop1523“
Mississippi GOP Governor Phil Bryant signed the bill into law last week, and it takes effect this summer. The bill has already received widespread condemnation from some of Mississippi’s largest employers including Nissan Group Tyson Food Inc, MGM Resorts International, and Toyota. TV star Ellen Degeneres denounced the law on her show. Even small businesses are calling it unnecessarily discriminatory and poorly written.
Stevie Van Zandt, guitarist of Springsteen’s backing E-Street Band, took to Twitter to praise the decision:
Right on Bryan Adams! Canceling the gig in Mississippi. The other front in the war against discrimination.
— Stevie Van Zandt (@StevieVanZandt) April 11, 2016
Sounds like Adams and Springsteen are singing the same tune. If both states don’t listen, North Carolina and Mississippi look to receive more backlash.
Featured image via Getty/Sean Gallup.
