Public debates over religious freedom laws continue
Top execs at 39 tech companies signed a statement urging protections for LGBT people, and Arkansas’ governor has declined to sign his state’s bill. Meanwhile, a pizzeria is taking flak for refusing to cater gay weddings.
The fallout continues from Indiana’s controversial Religions Freedom Restoration Act, which Gov. Mike Pence signed into law last week.
Thirty-nine technology executives signed a joint statement this week urging “all legislatures to add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes to their civil rights laws and to explicitly forbid discrimination or denial of services to anyone.”
Among those that signed the statement were the CEOs of Twitter, Lyft, AirBnB, Yelp, Ebay and many more.
Meanwhile, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson asked lawmakers in his state to change a similar piece of legislation to ensure protections for the LGBT community.
From The New York Times:
To ensure that the state is “a place of tolerance,” Mr. Hutchinson said, he was considering using an executive order that would seek to balance the “competing constitutional obligations” if the legislature declined to make changes to the bill.
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