The Atlanta Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (AGLCC) calls on Georgia legislators to put an end to the proposed “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” (RFRA). The RFRA is morally offensive and detrimental to the businesses and people of Georgia. Laws allowing religious exemptions to discriminate are a desperate and callous backlash against the success of marriage equality and other advances for the LGBT community.
The AGLCC advocates for the development of economic opportunities of our LGBT and allied business members, non-profit organizations, and our corporate partners and their employees. Georgia’s proposed RFRA law is a direct threat to our members’ ability to do business in our home state. Further still, this law would essentially relegate LGBT people in Georgia to a status of second-class citizens, who would be caused to question whether they will be served in certain restaurants or be allowed to shop in particular businesses.
The AGLCC applauds our corporate allies here in the state of Georgia who have already taken a stand against this bill this year and in previous years. Companies like The Home Depot, Delta, The Coca-Cola Company, MailChimp, The Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, The Metro Atlanta Chamber, and the NAACP have all made clear their denunciation of this proposed law.
We do not wish to see our economic or social futures compromised by the same short sighted discriminatory legislation that has caused such tremendous backlash in Indiana. This bill will surely be a stumbling block in Atlanta’s recent attempts to position itself as the “next Silicon Valley.” This bill is also likely to have a negative and lasting impact on Georgia’s flourishing film industry.
Firms like Salesforce.com, Angie’s List, Yelp, Chipotle, and even the state of Connecticut have already promised to boycott the state of Indiana in response to this law. Other corporations continue to take their stand against the laws of the state of Indiana. We do not wish to see a similar boycott negatively impacting the businesses we work so hard to support here in Georgia.
Finally, the law poses an immediate threat to the AGLCC’s proposal to host the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce’s (NGLCC) national conference in 2016-a conference which brought an estimated $1.4 million in revenue to the city of Las Vegas in 2014. NGLCC President and co-founder Justin Nelson has already stated that the Indiana law has called into question the NGLCC’s ability to locate the conference there, saying “we are only one of many conferences that will look elsewhere. We will not subject our attendees to potential discrimination.”
The Atlanta Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce is dedicated to stopping legalized discrimination from becoming the status quo and decimating Georgia’s economic future. We call on Georgia’s lawmakers to keep Georgia open for business by tabling the RFRA in this legislative session and refusing to hear similarly discriminatory legislation in future sessions.
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