Now that Indiana Governor Mike Pence has signed his state's controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) into law—days after the bill overwhelmingly passed the Indiana House and Senate—business leaders and others are trying to figure out what the impact of the law will be. The fear among its many opponents is that the bill codifies the right for businesses, individuals, and groups to discriminate against same-sex couples and others.
Choosing between belief and business
"This bill is not about discrimination," Pence said, "and if I thought it legalized discrimination I would have vetoed it."
Some businesses, however, aren't interested. On Thursday, Marc Benioff, the CEO of the cloud computing juggernaut Salesforce, announced that he was cutting Indiana off. "Today we are canceling all programs that require our customers/employees to travel to Indiana to face discrimination," he tweeted. Executives at Yelp and the NCAA were also among those issuing condemnations.
The implications of the bill's enactment, however, remain unclear. As the Indy Star pointed out, Salesforce "acquired Indianapolis-based marketing software company ExactTarget last year for $2.5 billion." (The company would not clarify exactly how Benioff's statement would affect its interests in Indiana.)