Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has promised to cease city workers from taxpayer-funded travel to the state, while the state is undergoing a lot of pressure from different religious and gay rights groups.
Murray believes that this new religious freedom law will harm the gay community and discriminate against the gay and lesbian population.
Murray is an openly gay lawmaker himself and does not believe that the new legislation does justice to image that Seattle has established over the years, and does not want to fund any municipal employees who wish to travel to Indiana.
Murray believes Seattle stands for more and stated, “Seattleites know that discrimination has no place in our city. That’s just equality 101.”
The law will allow businesses the right to essentially choose whom they want to serve or do business with based on religious beliefs, and that is why Murray feels that the legislation will harm a lot of gay citizens from being able to do business or consume at a vast amount of places.
State Senate President Pro Tem David Long, assures that no such behavior will occur with this new bill saying, “The new law does not discriminate, and it will not be allowed. To the extent that we need to clarify through legislative action, we plan to do just that.”
Other organizations such as the NCAA share Murray’s concerns about possible discrimination. NCAA President Mark Emmert states, “We are especially concerned about how this legislation could affect our student-athletes and employees. We intend to closely examine the implications of this bill and how it might affect future events as well as our workforce.”
This new legislation is receiving a lot of attention from a large amount of groups because a large amount of major cities have been advertising and encouraging freedom of choice and gay rights, and a lot of people feel that this new bill could set back a lot of progress those citizens have made.
Featured Photo – AP Photo/The Seattle Times, Steve Ringman
Content Photo – Rick Callahan/AP Photo
