Facebook, Apple, others send warning to Texas Governor over “Bathroom Bill”
In a letter sent May 27th Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook, 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 all signed asking Texas Governor Greg Abbott asking that he not sign any Anti-LGBTQ legislation into law!
“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. 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. We strongly urge you and the Texas Legislature not to further pursue legislation of this kind.” (link)
Prior and during the 85th legislative session here in Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick had Republican Lt. Governor Dan Forest of North Carolina come and speak at several events contesting the fact that North Carolina’s bathroom bill had effected them in any negative way economically.
The fact that they had good economic growth last year does not diminish the fact that they are not factoring in or reporting lost revenue from the entire vacation industry or loss of job growth do to many businesses choosing not to relocate to North Carolina because of HB 2, N.C.’s bathroom bill.
Politicians can spin any situation to their advantage. In this case Forest only speaks of financial gain, not revenue lost or job loss and loss of new businesses to move to North Carolina. In the end we all know that a bathroom bill will cause damage not only to the economy of Texas but also to job growth and attracting new businesses. It’s all a matter of semantics! Will Texas lose out if a bathroom bill passes? The answer will always be YES!
Kevin Orr is a political activist based in Austin, Texas. He’s known as @KevinDarryl on Twitter.