Indiana Religious Freedom Law Sparks Fury

Indiana Religious Freedom Law Sparks Fury

Gay-rights defenders say measure could result in discrimination

By Mark Peters and Jack Nicas in the Wall Street Journal

The national spotlight is shining on Indianapolis, but a week early.

Indiana’s largest city, which is preparing to host the NCAA Final Four, and the state as a whole face a growing backlash over a religious-freedom law that has drawn a hostile reaction from defenders of gay rights, who say it could result in discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Calls to boycott Indiana dominated Twitter on Friday. Tourism officials in Indianapolis fielded an onslaught of questions from convention planners. And Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton weighed in. Even the NCAA, which is based in Indianapolis and is planning to host more than 100,000 basketball fans next weekend, expressed concerns about what the law means.

“The reaction to this is startling in terms of its breadth—and to my mind—the extent to which the reaction is uninformed by the actual content of the law,” said Daniel O. Conkle, a professor of law at Indiana University Maurer School of Law.

Measures similar to that signed into law by Indiana Gov. Mike Pence this week are already in place at the federal level and in some 30 states. The law covers a relatively complex issue—setting a legal framework for those who claim a government rule or requirement is hampering their exercise of religion.

An example given by Mr. Conkle of such protections is a student who goes to court to keep his hair long for religious reasons in violation of a school dress code.

But such laws, which are being considered in more than a dozen states, are being seen, particularly by gay-rights groups, as running afoul of anti-discrimination protections. They argue that the Indiana law could open the door for businesses to seek court protection not to provide services to gays and lesbians—or for landlords who refuse to rent an apartment to same-sex couples—on religious grounds.

Mr. Pence dismissed the idea that the law was tied to gay rights or that it would allow discrimination. “This bill is not about discrimination, and if I thought it legalized discrimination in any way in Indiana, I would have vetoed it,” he said.

But the business community has delivered a rebuke to the law, with many big companies publicly criticizing the policy and saying they would re-evaluate their business in Indiana as a result. The response on Twitter has been fierce, with the #BoycottIndiana hashtag among the most used Friday.

Celebrities from commentator Larry King to pop star Miley Cyrus criticized the law on social media. Actress and singer Audra McDonald wrote on Twitter to Mr. Pence: “Some in my band are gay & we have 2 gigs in your state next month. Should we call ahead to make sure the hotel accepts us all?”

Indianapolis-based drug maker Eli Lilly & Co., which has 11,000 employees in Indiana, said the law “is bad for Indiana and bad for business” and would complicate the company’s task in attracting top talent. “Many of those individuals won’t want to come to a state with laws that discriminate,” the company said.

Outside of Indiana, Silicon Valley executives have been some of the lead critics. Mr. Cook said on Twitter: “Apple is open for everyone. We are deeply disappointed in Indiana’s new law and calling on the governor of Arkansas to veto the similar #HB1228,” a measure working its way though the legislature there.

Salesforce Inc. CEO Marc Benioff said on Twitter Thursday that the cloud-computing firm was canceling all programs that would require its customers and employees to travel to Indiana and “face discrimination.”

Almost all of his dozens of tweets since Thursday have focused on the Indiana law, including calls to other executives to address it. Salesforce purchased Indianapolis-based marketing-software firm ExactTarget for $2.5 billion in 2013.

State and city officials across Indiana sought to contain the backlash and any potential negative economic impact.

Chris Gahl, a spokesman for Visit Indy, a nonprofit agency aimed at attracting businesses and tourists to the city, said Visit Indy has been calling all of the annual conventions scheduled for Indianapolis “to reassure them just because a bill has been signed that our Hoosier hospitality has not gone away.”

He said the group also met with Mr. Pence to tell him its concerns about the law and the response it has received from Indianapolis visitors.

“In the last 72 hours, we’ve seen an onslaught of emails, phone calls and face-to-face meetings from concerned convention groups and consumer leisure travelers over whether or not they’d be welcomed” in Indianapolis, Mr. Gahl said. “This bill could impede our ability to retain conventions and to grow as a whole, and therefore impact jobs.”

Most worrying, Mr. Gahl said, is that the Gen Con gaming convention, Indianapolis’s biggest convention with 56,000 attendees, is now considering leaving the state after its contract expires in 2020. Mr. Gahl said Gen Con creates an estimated $56 million impact a year for Indianapolis, and extending the convention’s contract is one of his agency’s top priorities.

The law is also a hot topic in town, said Carrie Hawn, manager of Dave & Betty’s Diner in Indianapolis. “All the customers were asking us what we thought about it today,” she said. “We told them, to us, it makes no difference. A customer is a customer.”

As for Mr. Conkle, the law professor, the firestorm remains baffling to some degree. He said he is a supporter of gay rights and of the bill, because it protects religious freedoms. He said the two goals aren’t mutually exclusive. And he doesn’t expect in communities such as Indianapolis, which have anti-discrimination ordinances, that a person’s claim of religious protection would outweigh the governmental interest in such rules.

“You basically have an overreaction, and that’s putting it mildly,” he said.