In a well-written article last week by Arizona Republic reporter Maria Polletta covering actions - or rather inactions - by Mayor John Giles and the six Mesa City Council members
there appeared to be a consensus [although the member's votes were there to pass the Non-Discrimination Ordinance NDO] not to move forward on the momentum for inclusion and equal rights with District 2 representative Alex Finter being quoted as saying it would not be "a positive endeavor" at this time and would not consider the motion until after city-wide elections take place in November . . . Are they making the wrong call not to move forward NOW?
Mayor John Giles has frequently made public statements that "It's the right thing to do", at the same time wanting to make City Council approval of the NDO unanimous. Apparently there are certain hold-outs in elected City Councilmembers standing in the way of that inclusive affirmation who would vote "No".
Are the mayor and other councilmembers hedging on this for undisclosed reasons?
For instance, taking a stand on this issue in their election campaigns might jeopardize getting elected or re-elected by their constituents some of whom no doubt would be against.
Well that's democracy, folks . . . non-discrimination is an emerging issue all over this country: in cities and towns and state governments.
Here's an article from Thursday, two days ago about how companies are handling this and flexing their power
LGBT Inc.: Corporations Stand Up to State Governments in Defense of Civil Rights
Companies are getting together to combat a wave of so-called religious freedom bills.
April 28, 2016 — 10:55 AM MST
by Jeff Green, Tim Higgins
READ IT!
" . . . Almost 200 bills have been proposed this year in more than 30 states that would limit or prohibit protection against discrimination for LGBT individuals, according to the advocacy group Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Five have passed into law; three have been vetoed; and 144 have died or been withdrawn.
“We were like, ‘Whoa,’ and started to realize the scope of the issue,” Green says.
In response, large companies that have already contributed millions of dollars to HRC and other advocacy groups to combat anti-LGBT discrimination have been taking steps to coordinate their lobbying activities. “There’s going to be an increasing level of cooperation among companies,” says Kevin Kolevar, vice president for government affairs and public policy at Dow Chemical, who’s been involved in discussions with his counterparts at other corporations. “It’s a strengthening collaboration, but loose. You’re going to start to see the corporate community refining those efforts quite a bit, and it’s going to make more of a difference than it has.”
Corporate leaders say they’re primarily motivated not by politics but by business concerns.
They need to protect their own employees
create work environments attractive to younger workers, and eliminate the headache of dealing with a patchwork of differing rules for LGBT workers across the country. Companies that support gay employees do better in the stock market, according to research released on April 15 by Credit Suisse. The study found that a group of 270 companies that supported LGBT employees outperformed a global index by 3 percent annually over the past six years.
Apple and Facebook, which have data centers in North Carolina [ Blogger's Note: Apple is building a $2Billion Global Command Data center here in Mesa], teamed up with Bank of America and others to pressure Republican Governor Pat McCrory to undo the “bathroom bill” he signed in late March. PayPal executives convened to review the law and discuss its implications on the day it passed, fearing it could hurt the company’s ability to recruit talented workers. Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman decided to hold off on plans for a $3.6 million operations center, which would employ 400 people, until the law is repealed. On April 12, McCrory signed an executive order partially rolling it back. State Democratic lawmakers filed a measure on April 25 to repeal it entirely, but it’s unlikely to proceed in the Republican-controlled legislature.
HRC also coordinates letter-writing campaigns and local rallies on behalf of large corporations. The group raised almost $54 million in the fiscal year ended March 2015; it doesn’t disclose details on individual contributions, but Apple, Bank of America, Microsoft, and Starbucks are among more than 40 companies it lists as corporate sponsors. (Bloomberg LP, the owner of Bloomberg Businessweek, is also an HRC sponsor; company Chairman Peter Grauer has signed letters opposing religious freedom laws in North Carolina, Missouri, and Mississippi.) In an April 17 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, North Carolina’s McCrory acknowledged the influence of HRC’s corporate donors: “They are putting on a lot of pressure.”
Proponents of religious freedom measures say they’re representing the interests of small-business owners who don’t want to be forced to accommodate LGBT clients. Matt Sharp, legal counsel for the nonprofit legal advice group Alliance Defending Freedom, has visited Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina this year, consulting with small businesses that serve gay people but want the right to draw the line at participating in same-sex weddings.
“We don’t want to be forced by the government to produce speech, to produce expression, uniquely designed floral arrangements, cakes, and photographs that violate our faith,” Sharp says. The group raised $45 million in the fiscal year ended June 2014, according to its most recent publicly available tax filings; like HRC, it’s not required to disclose its donors.
Salesforce’s Green says one goal of the lobbying undertaken by his company and other large employers is to make it easier for small businesses to speak out against potentially discriminatory bills. Part of the strategy developed by McTighe, inspired in part by same-sex marriage initiatives, involves using funds donated by big corporations to get local employers involved. Hundreds of smaller companies in Tennessee and Mississippi signed recent letters opposed to anti-LGBT laws, as did local employers in Indiana last year. “Equality is a core value, and where we see negative legislation, we have to take a stand,” Green says. “We want to be a spark for others to get involved in areas and states that are considering these types of legislation.”
—With Craig Giammona and Spencer Soper
The bottom line: Some large U.S. corporations are banding together to combat state laws that would block civil LGBT protections.
