“Technology giants Apple, Google and Facebook are among a dozen big companies or their top executives objecting to a North Carolina law that bars municipalities from adopting their own anti-discrimination ordinances,” Emery P. Dalesio and Gary D. Robertson report for The Associated Press. “Facebook, Google and Apple each run massive data-processing complexes in western North Carolina. They joined American Airlines, IBM and others in reacting to a state law quickly adopted Wednesday that blocked local government measures to counter discrimination against gay, lesbian and transgender people. None of the high-profile companies have threatened to immediately withdraw business from North Carolina.”
“The Charlotte ordinance would have enabled transgender people to legally use restrooms aligned with their gender identity, and would have provided broad protections against discrimination in public accommodations in the state’s largest city,” Dalesio and Robertson report. “North Carolina is the first state to require public school and university students to use only those bathrooms that match their birth certificates, according to the National Conference on State Legislatures.”
“Supporters say the new law protects all people from having to share bathrooms with people who make them feel unsafe,” Dalesio and Robertson report. “Corporations announcing their displeasure ‘are shamefully bullying’ state officials while many small business owners who live in North Carolina support the new legislation, North Carolina Values Coalition Executive Director Tami Fitzgerald said. ‘North Carolinians should be aware of this so they have the opportunities to be consumers of companies that are congruent with their values,’ Fitzgerald said in a statement.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Have at it.
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