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Apple CEO asks Arkansas governor to veto 'right to discriminate' law
Amidst strong critical and economic reaction to an anti-LGBT law signed by Republican Governor Mike Pence in Indiana, Apple CEO Tim Cook -- recently named as the "World's Greatest [Business] Leader" by Fortune magazine -- has posted on Twitter expressing "deep" disappointment with the move and urging another Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, not to sign a similar measure.
Though Apple is naturally expected to be in the forefront of companies protesting the legalization of discrimination under the guise of alleged "religious freedom," in fact the reaction from tech companies and other businesses -- not to mention the public in the state and many celebrities -- has been swift and strong. Salesforce has cancelled programs and conferences it was going to stage in Indiana, Yelp has opted not to expand into Indiana and states that have similar measures, the company that runs Angie's List has put a halt to plans to build a new facility in the state, and most of the big tech companies have posted messages expressing dismay with the move.
Apple is open for everyone. We are deeply disappointed in Indiana's new law and calling on Arkansas Gov. to veto the similar #HB1228.
"Yelp will make every effort to expand its corporate presence only in states that do not have these laws allowing for discrimination on the books," said Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman in a statement. "I also hope that other companies will draw a similar line in the sand for equality on behalf of their employees and the greater public, to persuade legislators to do the right thing and stop or rescind these harmful laws."
In his tweet, Cook calls on Arkansas Governor Hutchison to veto a similar measure, which would allow businesses to refuse serving gay people (and, depending on the wording, other groups) if the owners of the business have "religious" objections. While such laws are unlikely to survive any court challenges, companies such as Apple object to the entire notion of legalizing forms of discrimination, pointing out that any group could conceivably to be subject to discrimination due to "religious objections," and that the legislation harkens back to America's sordid past of discrimination against (at various points in its history) African-Americans, Jews, Catholics, Irish people, Japanese Americans, immigrants, Muslims, and Native Americans (among others).
Rumors say that the iPhone maker is planning on supplementing Cook's words with more concrete protests, but there has been no indication of how that might occur. The company is extremely unlikely to stop selling goods in the state, but could protest the law by adding a sticker on its doors announcing its non-discrimination policies, for example, or suspend any future expansion in the state.
Arkansas, should it allow the similar HB1228 to become law, may also face sanctions and economic pressure from advocacy groups, tech companies ( which Hutchinson has been trying to recruit to build in the state), convention and tourism groups and other forces that see the discrimination laws as bad for business. The publicity and reaction by businesses to the new law has reportedly "shocked" Governor Pence, who has announced he will seek additional legislation to "clarify" the so-called "religious freedom" law.
Officials in Georgia scuppered plans for similar legislation after a Republican who objected to that state's version of the bill attached an anti-discrimination amendment, challenging advocates to pass it to prove that the measure wasn't about discrimination. The proponents instead dropped the measure entirely.
This is not an anti-LGBT (whatever) law. It is a pro-religious freedom law. It is to clarify that whatever laws are enacted cannot violate the religious freedom clause of the 1st Amendment: Congress (and now, by incorporation, the states) shall make no law "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion.
Liberals used to believe in liberty, even of ideas they disagreed with.
So, dwlayman, if my "religion" disapproves of mixing of races (and a lot of so-called Christians hold these beliefs), should I be permitted to discriminate against people of mixed race?
The 1st amendment already gives religious people, who don't make up the entire population of the US, the right to exercise their religious beliefs but it doesn't give them the right to discriminate against people who don't believe in those religious beliefs. Once someone opens up their doors to the public, they fall under different rules and regulations, one of which says you can't discriminate against selling or servicing someone because they have different beliefs, look different, or have different color skin. Go ahead dwlayman and follow the teachings of your god but remember that Jesus and those before him told their followers that everyone was created in God's image and therefore everyone is equal in the eyes of God and should be treated as such. Just because someone put some words down in a book 2K years ago doesn't mean those are the words or proclamations of Jesus (or any other major religious person). There's been a lot of editing of those books to meet the needs of certain people and groups over the years to make sure their desires and demands are met. In many ways, the Christian Bible is full of discriminatory writings because the Jews and Christians hated other people and couldn't follow Jesus' teachings in the first place. It's sad that there are still people who can't just get along with others.
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Last edited by prl99; Mar 29, 2015 at 10:03 AM.
Reason: typo)
@pairof9s You're right, it was an assumption of mine and I apologize to dwlayman if he took offense to the portion of my comment declaring him a Christian.
I think we should introduce a new bill regarding some peoples professing their religious freedom of choice to not to sell items, or services, based upon religious beliefs. ... i.e. Gay, or Lesbian, or Coptic, or Jewish, or Baptist, or any other stupid religious reason for denying anyone service.
If you will use religious belief to ban ANYONE, you MUST ban EVERYONE who is not your OWN religion. ...
FOR EXAMPLE, if you are Baptist, and you choose to ban Gay and Lesbians because of your religious belief, you would need to ban ALL people that are NOT Baptist. ... You could not sell to Presbyterians, Catholics, Muslims, or ANYONE Else, except for Baptists. You must, also have a sign placed in your window, in very large letters, which say, "This is a very strict religious store and, based upon our religion, we can only sell to people that we know share our beliefs. For us to know that with any certainty, you must be from our own church. We will not sell to anyone else. If you come in here, and are not people in our church, we will shun you, and not wait upon you because that is the law of religious prejudice."
I think we should introduce a new bill regarding some peoples professing their religious freedom of choice to not to sell items, or services, based upon religious beliefs. ... i.e. Gay, or Lesbian, or Coptic, or Jewish, or Baptist, or any other stupid religious reason for denying anyone service.
If you will use religious belief to ban ANYONE, you MUST ban EVERYONE who is not in your OWN church. ...
FOR EXAMPLE, if you are a member of a Baptist, and you choose to ban Gay and Lesbians because of your religious belief, you would need to ban ALL people that are NOT in your church. Remember that all Baptists do not believe the same way either. ... You could not sell to Presbyterians, Catholics, Muslims, or ANYONE Else, except for Baptists of my special church. You must, also have a sign placed in your window, in very large letters, which say, "This is a very strict religious store and, based upon our religion, we can only sell to people that we know share our beliefs. For us to know that with any certainty, you must be from our own church. We will not sell to anyone else. If you come in here, and are not people in our church, we will shun you, and not wait upon you because that is the law of religious prejudice."
@ dwlayman
Suggesting such laws are needed for "pro-religious freedom" is absurd. This country 2015 does not have problems with folks worshiping the religions of their choice.
The Indiana law and others like it are simply the Christian right legislating an excuse to get away with expressing the hatred and bigotry unfortunately so common in such organized religions.
Once a religion has indoctrinated someone into believing that folks who fail to believe the religion's dogma are going to hell (said hell created by the religion so there is a bad place to send nonbelievers) it pretty much guarantees its believers will be bigots.
SierraDragon is right. This is bill has nothing to do with religious freedom. It's about using religion as an excuse to discriminate against whomever you wish. Once you start a public business you fall under the public accommodation laws and therefor must treat everybody equally. And dwlayman, it's still the case that liberals are the ones most concerned with liberty. You confuse freedom to hate with codifying bigotry and hate. Hate all you want, just don't try to make laws out of it.
@dwlayman: So, please explain why all these so-called 'religious liberty' laws ALWAYS have to do with what other people do with their genitals. I have never heard of a so-called "religious liberty" law that allows a place of public accommodation to refuse service to adulterers, liars, those who take the Lord's name in vain, and so on.
I'm starting to get the idea that Christianity is all about being obsessed with what others do with their genitals.
This is not an anti-LGBT (whatever) law. It is a pro-religious freedom law. It is to clarify that whatever laws are enacted cannot violate the religious freedom clause of the 1st Amendment: Congress (and now, by incorporation, the states) shall make no law "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion.
Liberals used to believe in liberty, even of ideas they disagreed with.
No, this law trumps one group of individuals rights over the other. This is the conservative reaction to same-sex marriage, which they can't stand. They can't stand it so much that they're passing laws to allow religious employees the legal right to refuse service to any group they see fit. For example: a photography studio can refuse service for a gay wedding without any discriminatory or legal repercussions.
So whose rights are worth more? The religious rights of a business owner who objects to gay marriage, or the rights of the gay couple who can't find a photographer for their wedding?
It's discriminatory. Conservatives are hiding behind religious freedom, and many people can see through this bullshit, myself included.
It's my business. If I don't want to serve people with gray hair and big butts, shouldn't I be allowed to do so? If you don't like it, shop somewhere else.
that's what the white racists in the Jim Crow south said, Mr. Strat. "This Woolworth counter is for whites only, if you don't like it there are plenty of other places you Negroes can go eat your fried chicken and watermelon."
Enjoy their company, you are one of them.
Here you go Mr. Strat and dwlayman. These are your ideological brothers. Wear your 'religious liberty' convictions with pride, they sure did in the Jim Crow South.
These comments are sad. It's clear that most of you haven't read the Indiana law. At the end of the day, people should not be forced to do business with someone they do not want to do business with. Forcing people to do things is the cornerstone of communism. When it was suggested to me by a black person who ran a restaurant that catered to blacks that I just happened to walk into that I should probably go somewhere else, I didn't file a discriminatory lawsuit. It was their business... there is no constitutional requirement for them to serve me. I left as requested and spent my dollars elsewhere. From a business point of view I thought their position was short-sighted, but I respected their right to run THEIR business as they saw fit...
You can legally refuse to provide service someone because you don't like their hair, their shoes, or their butt size -- kind of like turning people away wearing jean shorts if you run a restaurant with a dress code. No one is stopping you from doing that, and you're well within your rights to do so. The reason is that the patron can always go home and put on different shoes, put on long pants instead of shorts, dye their hair, or work out and reduce the size of their butt.
You can't go home and change to heterosexual. You can't go home and become white instead of black. You can't go home and be 21 years old instead of 76 years old.
Those are some of the protected classes, and while you're free to discriminate based upon clothing or shoe color or clothing type or what-have-you, you're not free to discriminate against someone for who they are, if that particular thing you want to discriminate on is part of a protected class.
If you do insist on discriminating against someone for bigoted reasons, then I think the only fair thing to do would be for the government to calculate how much of those you discriminate against pay in taxes, how your business benefits from those taxes (road upkeep, police protection, disaster relief, etc.) and then reduce the benefits your business receives by that percentage. Perhaps a large pothole that prevents your customers from easily accessing your business doesn't get fixed because you choose not to serve gays and the elderly, because that pothole represents the percentage of taxes that the gays and elderly pay that go toward the benefit of your business.
In other words, if you want the right to withhold services from certain people, then it's only fair that they should be able to withhold against you too -- in the form of withholding benefits that those people are mandated into paying into.
All of that above is, of course, ridiculous. The real solution is to just serve the gay and elderly, despite what your beliefs tell you. Their money is just as green as the next person's, and no one's telling you that you have to like it -- they're just saying that if you want to open a business and reap the benefits of participating in society (and making a profit off of that society), then you need to be relatively open about what members of society you can and cannot refuse service to, because all of them pay taxes that directly benefit your business -- even the ones that your religion says you shouldn't like.
"These comments are sad. It's clear that most of you haven't read the Indiana law. At the end of the day, people should not be forced to do business with someone they do not want to do business with. "
That's what they said in the Jim Crow South when it came to the question of serving non-whites. You too can GFY with an ebola-coated pitchfork. Sideways.
@DiabloConQueso: unfortunately in many states, gender preference is not a 'protected class'. So yes, a business owner can refuse to do business with a person because they are left-handed, or red-haired, or because they are a liberal, or because they are conservative, and in many states because they are gay. Hopefully that will change in coming years. BTW, no other nation that would dare call itself 'civilized' would permit such laws like Indiana's to be enacted. The US is in proud company with Russia and Uganda, in enacting laws expressly meant to make homosexuals 2nd class citizens. America, **** yeah!
I guess you have to thank people like dwlayman and Mr. Strat for keeping us on our toes. It is far too easy to think that we have gotten past certain things as a society but, human nature being what it is, the same old bigotry is not too far below the surface in some parts. I am always surprised by situations and people like this and it is helpful, albeit sad, to be reminded that I shouldn't be.
@chongo: first of all, that was over 20 years ago. In the past, Democrats also championed Jim Crow laws in the deep South. However, a Democratic president (LBJ) signed into law the Civil Rights Act in 1965, and all the racist white southern conservative Democrats moved to the welcoming arms of the GOP. Today, only one major political party in the US champions the cause of ending legal discrimination against LGBT people, and only one major political party endorses such discrimination.
Then Rep. Chuck Schumer was the principal sponser of RFRA. Pelosi voted for it as well. Both Boxer and Feinstein voted for it as well. Biden voted for it also.
I find it funny that it's perfectly legal, then, in many states, to discriminate based upon gender preference as it relates to sexuality, yet some people feel the pressing need to codify their right to do so in law.
If it's legal to do it today, why do we need laws affirming that legality? I thought laws told you what you *couldn't* do, not what you *can* do.
I find it funny that it's perfectly legal, then, in many states, to discriminate based upon gender preference as it relates to sexuality, yet some people feel the pressing need to codify their right to do so in law.
If it's legal to do it today, why do we need laws affirming that legality? I thought laws told you what you *couldn't* do, not what you *can* do.
This passed 435-0 and 97-3 in a Democrat controlled congress. Perhaps the States need to copy and paste this into State versions
Right. And how exactly did the government allowing Native Americans to receive unemployment benefits, despite smoking a ritual substance, discriminate against other people? It's all about context, buddy. That's why today's version is all smoke (get it?) and mirrors.
Here's the text of the federal RFRA: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000bb-1
Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person—
(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and
(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
And here is the text of Indiana's RFRA: https://iga.in.gov/static-documents/...01.05.ENRS.pdf
A governmental entity may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion only if the governmental entity demonstrates that application of the burden to the person:
(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
It's my business. If I don't want to serve people with gray hair and big butts, shouldn't I be allowed to do so? If you don't like it, shop somewhere else.
You're welcome to be a bigot and weather the consequences.
You are NOT welcome to have your bigotry codified into law.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- George Santayana, ('The Life of Reason', 1905)
https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/blog/churchill-quote-history/
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