Jackson Free Press

Last year, the organizers of the boisterous and well-attended annual Mississippi Picnic in Central http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/weblogs/politics-blog/2016/apr/12/37th-annual-mississippi-picnic-in-central-park-can/">canceled it in the wake of House Bill 1523's passage.

"Any law such as HB 1523 that discriminates against even a single member of our community cannot be tolerated, and therefore we have decided to stand up for all Mississippians by canceling the 2016 picnic in the park," organizers wrote in a statement last year.

Now, the picnic that started in 1980 seems to be gone forever. The New York Mississippi Society, which runs the picnic, http://www.thenyms.org/">posted this today on its website: "The 36 years of the Mississippi Picnics has been wonderful and a positive thing for all those involved but with the competition of funding sources and the rising costs and complexity of putting this event together, The New York Society regrets to announce that there are no plans for any future picnics."

Read http://jfp.ms/lgbt">more about HB 1523 and its effects here.