If It Quacks Like A Duck

Marc Benioff, CEO of San Francisco-based Salesforce, announced this week that the company will reduce its investment in Georgia after lawmakers approved a bill that protects opponents of marriage equality.

“We’re looking squarely at what’s going on in Georgia with House Bill 757, which means that we have to reduce our investments in the state of Georgia based on what we’re seeing with the state government there … And I hope that they see the light the way that the state of Indiana did,” Benioff is quoted as saying by the Atlanta Business Chronicle during a conference call with analysts.

The Georgia Senate last week approved its version of House Bill 757, the Pastor Protection Act approved by the House. It protects clergy from being forced to marry gay and lesbian couples. On its way to the Senate floor, a committee amended the bill to include Senate Bill 284, which would “prohibit discriminatory action against a person who believes, speaks or acts in accordance with a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman or that sexual relations are properly reserved to such marriage.” The revised bill cleared the chamber 38-14.

Before heading to the desk of Republican Governor Nathan Deal, the GOP-led House must agree with the changes.

JoDee Winterhof, senior vice president of policy and political affairs at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest LGBT rights advocate, praised Benioff's stand.

“Salesforce is leading by example and reminding the legislature what it seems to have forgotten, that all Americans, including LGBT people, should be able to live free from fear of discrimination,” Winterhof said in a blog post. “Today another Georgia business is sounding the alarm about a reckless and irresponsible bill that would create broad loopholes and put LGBT Georgians in the path of discrimination. Business and religious leaders alike have called out this disingenuous bill as an attempt to license discrimination. This shameful bill should be stopped in its tracks.”

According to HRC, Salesforce joins several Georgia-based companies in speaking out against passage, including AT&T, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc., The Home Depot, SunTrust Banks, and United Parcel Service (UPS).