I am a long time resident of Mississippi and I have written many articles about the state of the state and the state of the government……Mississippi is the most obese state, the most religious, the most conservative, and a whole list of other factors…….most of them have nothing to do with prosperity…..and the legislature is seldom concerned with the betterment of the citizens….most of it is all about keeping the people down and out…..an easy force to control……..

Now the 2014 legislature has ended its run for the roses……and here is what some think of the session……………..

As the state continues to prepare for a myriad of new laws and reforms, legislators are taking the time to reflect on the 2014 legislative session. Republican Representative Andy Gipson of Braxton says he believes Mississippi made great strides this session.

“We passed some phenomenal legislation.” said Gipson. The criminal justice reforms, the 20-week abortion ban, Religious Freedom Restoration Act– that’s not discriminatory. It does protect people’s religious freedom Mississippi. Plus, we refilled the rainy day fund.”

Although the majority of Americans errantly believe the United States Constitution is the unchallenged law of the land, a substantial number of Christian fundamentalists still adhere to, and are enforcing, their firm belief that their almighty god directed the Founding Fathers to create a Christian nation and wrote a set of laws they would call “The Constitution of the United States.” In the Christian version of god’s Constitution, equal rights are an abomination on par with biblical god’s abhorrence of homosexuality, and religious freedom is Christian’s biblical right to subjugate the population under a Christian theocracy. Over the past five years, Americans have learned that, along with Republicans and teabaggers, the religious right hates the U.S. Constitution as much as they despise America’s African American President, gays, women, and Americans rejecting the Christian bible as law of the land, and the proof is another Republican-controlled state passing and the Republican governor signing into law, a religious edict voiding the 14^th and 1^st Amendment to make the Christian bible the law of the land in Mississippi.

Last week while Americans deluded that the religious right anti-gay movement is in its death throes celebrated the country’s entrance into the 21^st Century as an all-inclusive nation, Mississippi Republicans passed an anti-gay “religious freedom” law. Religious right activists celebrated Mississippi’s biblical law as empowering businesses to reject the Constitution and enforce biblical law discriminating against same-sex couples in the name of Christianity, and shortly after Governor Phil Bryant signed the scriptural edict into law, head of the Family Research Center, Tony Perkins, issued a statement saying as much. The leading prospect to head a Supreme Christian Council to rule theocratic America said, “Whether it’s someone like Pastor Telsa DeBerry who was hindered by the Holly Springs city government from building a new church in the downtown area, or a wedding vendor, whose orthodox Christian faith will not allow her to affirm same-sex marriage,” the religious edict will “prevent government from discriminating against religious exercise.”

In 2012, life in Mississippi might have gotten better, but it’s still the worst state in the country for elections, according to a new survey from Pew Charitable Trusts.

Pew creates a composite “Elections Performance Index” based on 17 factors (some of which include voting-wait time, turnout, registration rate, the robustness of the state’s election data, availability of online voting information, and use of provisional ballots). Read the full list of criteria here. Taken together, they provide a ground to compare states, which have varying election laws and practices.

Check out Pew’s complete interactive comparing the states here.