Indiana Facing Serious Fall Out from Religious Freedom Bill, Economy Could Lose Millions
Indiana became the target of a boycott and strong words from major tech companies after the state passed a controversial law that allows businesses to refuse service to someone if it would violate a person's religous beliefs.
The New York Times reports that the law could end up costing the state of Indiana millions, if not billions of dollars in revenue lost from conventions and companies. The law in question allows businesses to refuse to serve gay or transgender customers if the business owner feels that serving such customers would violate tenets of their faith.
On Twitter, the hashtag #BoycottIndiana trended for several hours and seems to have been effective. The Times notes that Salesforce.com has said it would cancel all events it had scheduled in Indiana. That company's CEO, Marc Benioff, said that Salesforce.com would move a convention from Indianapolis to New York as a result of the law. Last year, the conference brought 10,000 people and their wallets to Indianapolis.
Salesforce.com is currently planning an expansion that had been set to take place in Indianapolis, where the company has 2,000 employees. The future of that expansion and the jobs it would create is now questionable.
Another convention, Gen Con, also said that it would reevaluate its contract with the city of Indianapolis, which will expire in 2020. The gaming convention drew 56,000 people to Indianapolis in 2014, and the loss of such a large annual crowd would send economic shock waves through the city.
Salesforce.com was joined by Apple and Yelp in their renunciation of the law. Yelp said the law made the prospects for expansion in Indiana increasingly dim, while Apple expressed disappointment with the law and urged Arkansas' governor to veto a similar proposal.
