14 Major Corporations Warn Texas Not to Pass Anti-LGBT Laws

Republicans in Texas like to brag that the state has lead the nation in job creation.  What they leave out is the fact that the vast majority of jobs have been low paying jobs with no benefits.  They also leave out the fact that California, a state that is maligned by wingnuts and Republicans for being "liberal" is far out performing Texas in terms of job creation.  Facts, of course, do not matter the the GOP or their brain dead supporters. Now, having learned nothing from North Carolina's HB2 debacle and the self-inflicted economic harm that arose therefrom, Texas Republicans are hell bent to pass myriad anti-LGBT laws before the legislative session ends.  Indeed, Texas' lunatic governor has threatened to call a special session if the legislation fails to pass before the end of the regular session. Fourteen (14) major corporations have now warned Texas against pursuing the Christofascist inspired bills.  The Dallas Morning News looks at this development.  Here are excerpts:

The CEOs of 14 top companies, including Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon, have sent a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott urging him not to pass discriminatory legislation.

"As large employers in the state, we are gravely concerned that any such legislation would deeply tarnish Texas' reputation as open and friendly to businesses and families," the CEOs wrote Abbott in a letter dated May 27. "Our ability to attract, recruit and retain top talent, encourage new business relocations, expansions and investment, and maintain our economic competitiveness would all be negatively affected. 

In addition to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook, the letter was signed by Amazon CEO Jeff Wilke, IBM Chairman Ginni Rometty, Microsoft Corp. President Brad Smith and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. The leaders of Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco, Silicon Labs, Celanese Corp., GSD&M, Salesforce and Gearbox Software also signed the letter.

The letter, which has not been made public but was released to The Dallas Morning News, was sent just days before state lawmakers were scheduled to gavel out the 2017 regular legislative session. The year's most controversial and divisive issue has been a Senate proposal to block transgender Texans from using restrooms that match their gender identities. 

Abbott has urged lawmakers to find a compromise on this issue before they're scheduled to go home on Tuesday, but the Republican leaders of the House and Senate have been at loggerheads over the issue for months. 

The disagreement reached a head Friday, with House Speaker Joe Straus refusing to pass legislation he said could harm "some very vulnerable young Texans." Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who heads the Senate, then asked Abbott to make lawmakers stay until they passed a so-called bathroom bill.

Business groups have openly objected to this and other legislation that they say would hurt Texas' lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, but the opposition has done little to thwart Patrick's efforts.

Abbott's and Patrick's self-prostitution to Christian extremists and "family values" hate groups would make a tawdry whore look virtuous.  Unfortunately, neither Abbott nor Patrick is alone in the GOP when it comes to such self-prostitution to hate group extremists and is a main reason why I do all I can to oppose EVERY Republican candidate anywhere in America. Only by electoral defeats and continued harsh economic backlashes to GOP bigotry and misogyny will the GOP do what it has needed to do for decades now: cast out the Christofascists and send them into permanent political exile.

Virginia Makes A Push for LGBT Tourism Dollars

With Virginia being hammered by reduced federal government spending, one of the pushes of Gov. Terry McAuliffe has been to pursue the LGBT tourism dollar.  Indeed, McAuliffe has set up and LGBT Tourism Commission (on which some of our friends currently serve) and, unlike members of the Virginia GOP who continue to prostitute themselves to Christian hate groups and extremists, he realizes that being welcoming to all makes good business sense.  A piece in the Daily Press looks at this common sense effort that more parts of Virginia need to embrace (after years of lagging, Norfolk has realized the attractiveness of welcoming the pink dollar).  Of course, the current anti-LGBT toxicity reigning in North Carolina makes Virginia destinations look even more attractive to many living in the mid-Atlantic region.  Here are highlights:

RICHMOND – You can now buy "Virginia is for Lovers" trucker hats with a gay pride flag incorporated into the state's iconic tourism pitch.

The hat, and other state swag, is part of a new branding effort targeting LGBT tourists. There's a new web page highlighting events and destinations that have self-identified as LGBT friendly and a new resource guide for businesses looking to cash in.

The Virginia Tourism Corporation rolled out the campaign heading into this weekend, just ahead of the Virginia Pridefest in Richmond. But this is no limited-time event.

"This is going to be fully integrated in all our marketing, from top to bottom," tourism corporation spokeswoman Caroline Logan said. "This will be going on forever as far as we're concerned."

Eight other states have done something similar, but Virginia is the first one in the South, unless you count Florida. The campaign has been two years in the making, started by a push from Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who made clear from before he took office that he wants everyone to visit Virginia, and to leave lots money.

LGBT tourists – and that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender – make up 10 percent of the U.S. tourism market, Logan said. They spend somewhere around $57 billion a year on travel and tourism, she said.

"They travel more and they stay longer and they spend more money," she said.

Logan said campaign feedback has been positive, but the effort is bound to be controversial for some.

Businesses and events have to opt into this particular marketing campaign, just as they do for other targeted state campaigns. The database of places to stay included 120 locations on rollout. Among other things, the website features a picture of McAuliffe marrying a lesbian couple.

In addition to the web page and database, the tourism corporation has created an LGBT Tourism Resource Guide for state businesses in the tourism industry, which generated an estimated $23 billion in spending last year in the state.

As noted, here's why courting the LGBT tourism dollar makes sense: "they travel more, stay longer and spend more money."  Only a fool - or religious extremist of GOP political whore - would not welcome that kind of traveler. 

The Growing Backlash Against North Carolina’s Anti-LGBT Law

Apparent mental midget NC Gov. Pat McCory

Driving back from Richmond, I listened to among other things an interview with the director of Equality North Carolina who expressed the view that North Carolina Republicans seemingly thought that, if they rammed the state's new anti-LGBT law through in a single day, then they could avoid the backlash that Georgia is experiencing as that state's Governor tries to decide whether to veto the Georgia bill.  Whatever the North Carolina GOP cretins may have thought, they are quickly finding that escaping a severe backlash was a fantasy on their part.  Major corporations, pro-sports leagues and many others are raising an outcry and their may be very real economic consequences - especially if the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals finds that anti-transgender action violates Title IX and North Carolina loses $4.5 billion in federal education funding.   A piece in Think Progress looks at the growing backlash.  Here are highlights:

North Carolina’s legislation, which was passed by the legislature and signed into law by the governor in just one day, is targeted at undoing an LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance recently passed in Charlotte by banning any local nondiscrimination laws. But it also goes much further, banning transgender people from using bathrooms that match their gender unless they change their birth certificates, preventing civil suits even when discrimination is documented, and prohibiting cities and counties from passing employment requirements — a higher minimum wage or paid sick days, for instance — that go beyond state law.

While San Francisco is the first governmental entity to take a stand against the law, a huge number of businesses have already spoken out. A number of technology companies — including IBM, which has a big presence in the state; PayPal, which just announced the opening of a new office there; Apple; Facebook; Google; and Salesforce — have all spoken out against the law. 

In the sports world, the NBA, which is set to host the All-Star Game in Charlotte next year, has spoken out against the law and put the location of that event into question. The NCAA, which is planing to hold the men’s basketball tournament in the state in 2017 and 2018, says it’s monitoring the situation, as is the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the oldest African-American sports conference, which holds its annual basketball tournament in the state every year. Meanwhile, ESPN had been considering Charlotte for a possible site for the X Games in the summer but has now said it embraces “diversity and inclusion and will evaluate all of our options.” 

Others have joined in as well. American Airlines, whose second-largest hub is in Charlotte, said, “Laws that allow such discrimination go against our fundamental belief of equality and are bad for the economies of the states in which they are enacted.” Lowe’s, based in Mooresville, said it “opposes any measure in any state that would encourage or allow discrimination.” Dow Chemical, which has several factories in the state, tweeted that it is “disappointed” in the signing of the law, and Biogen, a biotech company that employs more than 1,000 people in the state, also tweeted its opposition.