Google, Amazon and Other Corporate Giants Ban Together To Target Texas Religious Freedom Bills
Google, Amazon, IBM and Texas businesses banded together to oppose several Texas bills offering religious exemptions to businesses and state license holders.
The group of businesses, along with several local Texas chambers of commerce, sent a letter to the Texas state legislature Wednesday declaring that they will oppose any legislation that affords protections to business owners who refuse service to individuals based on deeply held religious beliefs.
They also oppose protections for physicians and other state-licensed professionals who refuse non-emergency services, such as abortions, for the same reasons.
“We will continue to oppose any unnecessary, discriminatory, and divisive measures that would damage Texas’ reputation and create problems for our employees and their families,” the letter read, according to The Associated Press.
“These include policies that explicitly or implicitly allow for exclusion of LGBTQ people, or anyone else, as well as the preemption of municipal nondiscrimination laws, in whole or in part.”
Several of the companies involved also banded together in 2017 to oppose a Texas bill that would have required transgender people to use the bathrooms assigned to their biological gender.
The bill was defeated.
The group now specifically opposes Republican Sen. Charles Perry’s bill.
The bill would offer “faith-based exemption” protections to state-licensed professionals.
It would also prevent state licensure boards from denying licenses to individuals based on their religious beliefs, in addition to other bills offering the aforementioned protections to business owners and physicians.
On Twitter, American Society of Association Executives quoted CEO John Graham as asserting that legislation that “would weaken protections for the LGBTQ community would have severe economic consequences, in terms of lost jobs and event bookings across Texas.
John Graham, the president and CEO of American Society of Association Executives, said any legislation that would weaken protections for the LGBTQ community would have severe economic consequences in terms of lost jobs and event bookings across Texas. https://t.co/5X9iTrSJKY
— ASAE (@ASAEcenter) March 28, 2019
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
