(Bloomberg) -- Angie’s List Inc., the consumer-review website, withdrew a proposal to expand its Indianapolis headquarters after Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed legislation that critics say discriminates against gays.
The company’s announcement Saturday that it was pulling its planned $40 million investment from City-County Council consideration, days before it planned to break ground, follows statements of concern about the Indiana law earlier this week by technology-industry leaders including Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and Salesforce.com Inc. CEO Marc Benioff.
Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law Thursday. The statute gives businesses the right not to serve gays and lesbians on religious grounds.
“Angie’s List is open to all and discriminates against none and we are hugely disappointed in what this bill represents,” Angie’s List CEO Bill Oesterle said in a statement. The company said it would begin reviewing alternatives for its headquarters expansion.
Apple’s Cook wrote in a Twitter post on Friday that his company is “deeply disappointed in Indiana’s new law.” He called on the Arkansas governor to veto a similar measure in that state.
“Around the world, we strive to treat every customer the same -- regardless of where they come from, how they worship or who they love,” Cook wrote in a subsequent post.
Cook criticized his home state of Alabama in October for not protecting people based on their sexual orientation. A few days later, in an essay in Bloomberg Businessweek, he said he was gay. “I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me,” he wrote.
Yelp Howls
Salesforce’s Benioff tweeted on Thursday that the business-software maker was “canceling all programs that require our customers/employees to travel to Indiana to face discrimination.”
Hours later, Jeremy Stoppelman, the CEO of Yelp Inc., wrote “An Open Letter to States Considering Imposing Discrimination Laws.”
“Yelp will make every effort to expand its corporate presence only in states that do not have these laws allowing for discrimination on the books,” the letter said.
Max Levchin, a co-founder of PayPal, also criticized the Indiana law in a Twitter message.
Kara Brooks, Pence’s press secretary, said the law doesn’t legalize discrimination.
“For more than twenty years, the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act has never undermined our nation’s anti-discrimination laws, and this law will not do so in Indiana either,” she said by e-mail.
Presidential Race
Pence, a former six-term congressman and conservative talk-show radio host, has been mentioned by some media outlets as a potential candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
Indiana stands “for the importance of marriage and the freedom of religion,” he said in a Feb. 27 speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee in suburban Washington.
Lawmakers have introduced more than 85 bills that penalize members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in 28 state legislatures this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT-rights organization.
“Many of these bills could critically undermine the enforcement of state nondiscrimination protections and passing them will do serious harm to the business climate of these states,” the organization wrote in response to the Indiana law. The group plans to place a full-page ad in the San Jose Mercury News to inform Silicon Valley companies about the law, Jason Rahlan, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, said by e-mail.
1,000 Jobs
At the end of last year, 20 states had passed legislation prohibiting discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation and gender identity, according to data compiled by the organization.
Angie’s List said in October that it was moving forward with the expansion of its headquarters and that the project, which involved the purchase of a former Ford assembly plant, could add 1,000 jobs over five years, according to the Indianapolis Star.
The City-County Council on Monday was scheduled to consider the company’s proposal, which sought tax incentives.
“We were hopeful that the council would be favorable,” Debra DeCourcy, a spokeswoman for Angie’s List, said in an interview. “This aspect of the bill that passed recently put a different light on things.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Jack Clark in San Francisco at jclark185@bloomberg.net; Tim Jones in Chicago at tjones58@bloomberg.net; Tom Schoenberg in Washington at tschoenberg@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net; Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.net Stephen West, Bernard Kohn
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