Apple has voiced its displeasure at a new Mississippi law that lets government workers and some private citizens refuse to sell goods and services to LGBT citizens on the basis of their religious beliefs.
“We want Mississippians to know that our stores and our company are open to everyone, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love,” said an Apple representative, arguing that the Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act “empowers discrimination.”
The ruling is the latest of multiple bills designed to promote religious freedom in the American South. Other states which have passed similar laws include North Carolina and Georgia, while Tennessee and South Carolina are considering similar legislation.
Apple is far from alone in strongly disagreeing with the new Mississippi Law. Since it was signed into law earlier this week, five states (Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington) and three cities (including Santa Fe, Seattle, and tech hub San Francisco) have all banned their officials from nonessential trips to Mississippi funded by the state.
Tim Cook has long championed LGBT causes during his time as Apple CEO. Since coming out as gay in an eloquently-written editorial, he has become an important figurehead for the gay community — whether that means participating in San Francisco’s Gay Pride parade, or speaking out against Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s similarly controversial religious freedom bill SB1062.
Last summer, Apple’s ResearchKit was announced as the platform for what will be the largest-ever national study of LGBT health, through the creation of an iPhone app called The Pride Study.
Source: Clarion Ledger
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
9 responses to “Apple criticizes ‘discriminatory’ Mississippi religious freedom law”
Love the hypocrisy. Gays want rights while taking away religious rights. Stop telling me I have to accept your way of life. I do not. I applaud the states recognizing religious freedom.
Not sure how forcing Government/company employees to provide services to LGBT citizens is taking away your religious rights. If you work for an organization nobody cares if you believe in God or if you believe in the flying spaghetti monster, your own beliefs don’t matter. You provide the services that they offer to citizens. If you’re going into a store it doesn’t matter whether you’re white or black, gay or straight. If you have money you can exchange it for goods and services. If 2 gay people want to get married and your job is to provide marriage services then you marry them regardless of what your opinion is. Do you prevent fat people from buying chocolate in a supermarket because you believe that they shouldn’t have it?
If you believe that they shouldn’t have rights to make their own decisions which do not impact on your life then you shouldn’t be working for the company. Once again, nobody cares about your beliefs – you are just an average human just like LGBT citizens. You are quite welcome to believe in what you want and can hold whatever opinion of them you want but it is unacceptable to force that opinion onto them. What makes your beliefs more important than theirs?
No one is telling you you can’t be a bigot. Quite obviously no law has yet stopped you from holding and sharing your benighted views of the world. No one is taking away religious rights, and the LGBT community isn’t taking away your religious rights. You can still believe whatever your big book of fairy tales tells you about LGBT people, including the part about stoning them to death (which is repulsive to the rest of us). What you don’t have the right to do, is take away other people’s rights or discriminate through legislation certain people’s right to the same freedoms you have. This isn’t the bronze age. If it were, people would be still stoning LGBT people to death, much the way that is still done in some parts of the middle east today based on insane religious texts. Come join the rest of us in the 21st century.
It’s amazing how NC has been one of the top States to live, work, and relocate for the past couple of decades with no discrimination and a welcoming of all creeds, yet now we have these false claims of being anti-LGBT. Pull your head out of your ass Apple. Just because we tolerate and accept LGBT doesn’t mean you have to continue to force your Liberal ideology on everyone. We live in a diverse world. If you want to talk about discrimination, let’s talk about how Liberals discriminate against Christians and anyone that shares a different thought or idea than they do.
How, exactly, are you being “discriminated” against?
They call it bigotry but all the LGBT is doing is pushing their agenda and forcing Christians to infringe on their beliefs. Remember the constitution? Freedom of Religion. What about separation of Church and State? Oh no! But when it come to their agenda, then the Constitution doesn’t matter, nor the separation of Church and State. They want what they want and when they don’t get it, they label it “Bigotry or “Homophobic”. Make up your mind.
Replace LGBT with “black community” and visit the ‘murica of the past around 50 or 60 years ago: “They call it bigotry but all the black community is doing is pushing their agenda and forcing Christians to infringe on their beliefs. Remember the constitution? Freedom of Religion. What about separation of Church and State? Oh no! But when it come to their agenda, then the Constitution doesn’t matter, nor the separation of Church and State. They want what they want and when they don’t get it, they label it “Bigotry”. Make up your mind.” See how that shoe fits? The gods forbid that gay people just might want the same freedom to shop and eat at the same places good Christian people are allowed to shop and eat at. Thankfully, living in Canada, we haven’t had to deal with such nonsense, because along with the rest of the civilized world, we grew up decades ago and treat everyone equally.
Last time I was in Canada, It wasn’t as “equally” as you put it. You are all obnoxious, rude and you seem to been caught in the past. You drive like maniacs and the only thing great about your country is the Falls.
Bert, respond to Andrew’s main point, please.
And my experiences in Canada were wildly different than yours, I’ve been to Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and many other places in Canada and with very few exceptions, me and my partner found Canadians to be open, warm and intelligent people. Not to mention it’s gorgeous there. Have you been to Banff? The Butchart Gardens? Spectacular.