Posted on 03/28/2015 4:22:36 AM PDT by NYer
Gay activists and corporate leaders assailed a new Indiana allows that extends legal protections to religious business owners and individuals and vowed to boycott the state, according to CNBC.
The law, signed by Pence on Thursday, allows businesses to use an owner's faith as a reason to refuse service to customers, including same-sex married couples. The law risks setting off a business chill in the state, with money-making conferences and major corporations threatening to pull out.
Big corporations were among the loudest critics. Columbus, Indiana-based Cummins, the world's largest diesel engine maker, opposed the new law in strong terms. "Cummins believes it's bad for business and bad for Indiana and sends the message that the state is unwelcoming," a Cummins spokesman said. "We are a global company in a competitive environment and it could hinder our ability to attract and retain top talent."
Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff tweeted on Thursday about the decision in a series of comments that went viral and said the company would be forced to dramatically reduce its spending in the state. He called for any Salesforce employees and customers required to travel to the state for any work-related tasks to immediately cancel plans. He also called on the rest of the tech industry to take a stand against the Indiana government's decision. Salesforce bought Indianapolis-based marketing software company ExactTarget in 2013. The new law permits religious businesses and individuals to refuse to serve gay couples to preserve their beliefs. Surrounded by religious leaders, including Franciscan priests and nuns, Republican Gov. Mike Pence said the bill would permit the religious to exercise their freedom of religious without fear of government coercion. The Indianapolis Stardescribed the story this way:
"This bill is not about discrimination," Pence said, "and if I thought it legalized discrimination I would have vetoed it."
Senate Bill 101 prohibits state or local governments from substantially burdening a person's ability to exercise their religion — unless the government can show that it has a compelling interest and that the action is the least-restrictive means of achieving it. It takes effect July 1.
Although the bill does not mention sexual orientation, opponents fear it could allow business owners to deny services to gays and lesbians for religious reasons.
Pence signed the bill during a private ceremony in his Statehouse office just before 10 a.m. Thursday. He was joined by supportive lawmakers, Franciscan monks and nuns, orthodox Jews, and some of the state's most powerful lobbyists on conservative social issues.
The event was closed to the public and the press.
The bill signing makes Indiana the 20th state in the nation to adopt such legislation. It is modeled on the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which President Bill Clinton signed in 1993.
But the timing of the measure has colored the debate in Indiana.
Social conservatives have pushed hard for such measures across the country following recent federal court rulings that legalized same-sex marriage in Indiana and other states.
Many in Indiana also see the legislation as a reaction to last year's unsuccessful push to enshrine a same-sex marriage ban in the state's constitution.
Three of the lobbyists who pushed hardest for last year's gay marriage ban — Micah Clark of the American Family Association of Indiana, Curt Smith of the Indiana Family Institute and Eric Miller of Advance America — were among the 70 to 80 guests invited to the private bill signing.
"It is vitally important to protect religious freedom in Indiana," Miller said in a statement after the bill signing. "It was therefore important to pass Senate Bill 101 in 2015 in order to help protect churches, Christian businesses and individuals from those who want to punish them because of their Biblical beliefs!"
Socially conservative advocacy groups were joined by the Catholic Church, Indiana Right to Life, and many evangelical Christians in supporting the measure.
But Pence rejected suggestions that SB 101 was a consolation prize for conservative advocacy groups who failed to pass the gay marriage ban last year.
Catholic ping!
down go the soetoro faggots.
The homosexuals are going to boycott Indiana?
Wow, their real estate just took a sharp jump up as well!
This is one reason that the homosexual issue should be tackled at state level. Every state for itself - if your state welcomes them, they can have ‘em. If your state sticks with the normal man/woman marriage, then that state will get the normal families and will strengthen and prosper.
“Cummins believes it’s bad for business and bad for Indiana and sends the message that the state is unwelcoming,” a Cummins spokesman said.
Dudes concern doesn’t seem to extend to Christians.
Well if Cummins wants to cater to the Lavender Mafia, that’s its affair.
No one is forcing them to do business in Indiana or to serve customers with religious faith.
Pence=common sense.
This isn’t even a question of marriage, it is a question of telling religious institutions that don’t practice same-gender couplings that they can’t be sued out of all they own just because they do not practice it. As far as I am concerned, if someone were to honestly assess this law, then it allows the right to not join a religion that won’t recognize your relationship, leave it, and preach all sorts of evil you wish against it, none of those rights are taken away or interfered with.
They are Attention Whores and think they have the right to force others to do whatever they want them to do.
More Cummins noise....... noise is what Cummions is best known for
I sense that business is becoming a leader in destroying our liberty in general through promotion of international groupings like the EU and so on and by opposing freedom for conservative religious groups guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Corporatism is a problem and its influencing all major political parties and governments in the world.
That’s why I support UKIP and Nigel Farage.....
Seriously though, all stupidity aside, the movement militants are simply upset that they ans their army of free layers can no longer troll Indiana businesses for lawsuit lotto. God forbid someone be able to practice Christianity without fear of lawsuit and having to lose their home and life savings to an ACLU lawyer. AFAIAK, they can make good on their threats and leave. Like Exact Target is someone to love in the first place... the source of billions of email spam annually. I guess I'm pretty much done with ebay now as well since I just shut off my paypal account. Screw em all, walk another block and buy your homo cupcakes somewhere else. Better yet, keep your sexual fetish to yourself and there won't be one single problem (as if there were a rash of problems to begin with). My apologies for the rant... the stupidity in the air is burning my eyes
The tolerists have no tolerance for any one who doesn’t think as they do.
Because if someone has a quaint belief in God, that person is a bigot.
Its not about gay rights and it never was in this country.
What two people do in their bedroom is their business. But they have no right to force their sexual preferences upon others.
And religious people have as much right to their beliefs as every one else in our society.
I agree. It’s also why I’ve come to see the corporatist/Chamber-of-Commerce wing of the GOP to be every bit an enemy as the lib Dems and their loathesome agenda. Every bit an enemy to everything I believe and value.
I’ve made a massive shift to avoiding as much commerce as I can with these large American corporations, as they’ve increasingly cast their lot with the deviant homo-fascists and their attacks on religious liberty. Doing everything I can to buy only local and small-business product.
Faggies are drama queens who squeal & stamp their little feet when society fails to do their bidding. It’s all about ME ME ME!
I was taken aback when I first saw that signing photo but then sigh of relief, those aren’t Muslims, they’re nuns!
I see monks & a rabbi, too. Good on Indiana!
Let's find a Muslim bakery and have them make a cake stating “Mohammad was a child molester.” Let's hire a gay baker to make a cake stating, “Homosexuality is a sign of mental disease.” Then explain that this is supported by Cummins.
I say that more Christians buy Cummins than do gays.
Refuse to buy all Cummins’ products.
The issue that you raise is something that started when corporations started developing community outreach departments (or something similar). From that point on, they started introducing people into the company structure who thought that social work/social policy was just as important as the true function of the company (i.e. to offer a product or service at a competitive price). When corporations ditch the “social work” departments and staff, then they can focus on their true function.
Guess which carmaker has a plant in Indiana?
We should put a list together of the people and corps attacking Indiana, so we know who to do business with.
The U. S. Constitution includes religious freedom as one of the protected rights, but it doesn’t include homosexual behavior as a protected right.
Hmmmm . . . .
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