Yesterday, Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This bill would give businesses the right to refuse goods and services to customers, particularly same-sex couples.If you attempt to sue the business for discrimination, they can use religion as a defense. You knew it wouldn’t take long before the backlash to start.
Take Salesforce for instance. Their CEO Marc Benioff cancelled all their events throughout Indiana, and threatened a long term boycott unless the new bill is repealed. In an interview, Benioff talked about his company’s economic contributions to the state. He’s not bragging or exaggerating. Salesforce employs as many as 3,000 people in Indiana. In 2013, he acquired an email marketing firm for around 2.5 billion dollars. The firm is based in Indianapolis, the state’s capitol and largest city. An annual event called Exact Target is being threatened. This event has gone on since 2007 and last year alone, made Indianapolis $8 million. Benioff says he’ll move it to New York this year if he has to. Benioff asked other tech CEOs to take up this cause.
But Gov. Pence sticks by this bill. He insists this bill is not to discriminate against anyone and has even reached out to Benioff. I don’t think this bill was made to deliberately discriminate against people, but perception is everything. It’s sad to say, but in 2015 America, some businesses could run with this. This bill could allow owners to reject anybody on the basis of religion, race, creed, color, ethnicity, as well as orientation. They could hide behind religion to excuse such prejudice behavior. In the 1960s, a barbecue restaurant owner in South Carolina tried this. Will history repeat itself? Plus, this bill is going to upset a lot of Americans and possibly cripple Indiana’s economy. What if other tech companies follow Mr. Benioff’s example? What if other states welcome Salesforce operations with open arms? What is Marc Benioff removes all of his Salesforce offices and employees out of Indiana? Organizers of the gaming conference Gen Con are leaving Indiana and going somewhere else. Even the NCAA is talking about stopping college basketball tournaments in Indiana because of the bill. Is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act the worst bill in Indiana’s history?