Georgia has tabled its “religious liberty” bill as tech titans are clamoring to protest Indiana’s recently passed legislation that permits businesses to discriminate against gay and lesbian customers in the name of religious freedom.
Indiana is the first state this year to enact such legislation, though others are considering similar bills. Georgia was one of those states, though it looks like the bill won’t be up for reconsideration at least for another year.
The passage of Indiana’s “religious freedom” bill has enraged many in the tech community. Salesforce chief exec Marc Benioff has already said he’ll be pulling conferences out of Indiana and canceling all employee travel to Indiana.
Today we are canceling all programs that require our customers/employees to travel to Indiana to face discrimination. http://t.co/SvTwyCHxvE
— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) March 26, 2015
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Apple chief exec Tim Cook has also spoken out against the law:
Apple is open for everyone. We are deeply disappointed in Indiana's new law and calling on Arkansas Gov. to veto the similar #HB1228.
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) March 27, 2015
And other tech companies and personalities also oppose Indiana’s new law. As TechCrunch writer Jordan Crook points out, gay rights has a great deal of support among the technorati, and they will not be silent on this issue.
It will be interesting to see if the outrage from the tech community will influence legislative bodies to table or vote down equally discriminatory bills going forward.
