SAN FRANCISCO—San Francisco Mayor Edward M Lee has banned the city’s employees for their work-related trips to Indiana. The decision is in response to the signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law by Indiana Governor Mike Pence on March 28.
Defenders of the law believe that it allows the practice of freedom of religion. Opponents are concerned that the law gives a legal permission to discriminate LGBT. One of the opponents is Ed Lee. He objected to the law and stated:
“We stand united as San Franciscans to condemn Indiana’s new discriminatory law, and will work together to protect the civil rights of all Americans including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals.
Effective immediately, I am directing City Departments under my authority to bar any publicly-funded City employee travel to the State of Indiana that is not absolutely essential to public health and safety. San Francisco taxpayers will not subsidize legally-sanctioned discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people by the State of Indiana.”
The business world of San Francisco also responded with boycotting Indiana over its new law. Many high-profile companies believe that the law permits businesses to use religious beliefs as a defense and discriminate LGBT.
Marc Benioff, CEO of SalesForce company that is headquartered in San Francisco, tweeted on Thursday, “Today we are canceling all programs that require our customers/employees to travel to Indiana to face discrimination.”
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, also tweeted his response about the law saying, “Apple is open for everyone” and the company is “deeply disappointed” in the Indiana’s law.
