In a rare public statement, Apple CEO Tim Cook pens a Washington Post op-ed decrying the dozens of anti-gay “religious freedom” bills spreading across the country.
Apple CEO Tim Cook rarely enters the national conversation, but he has recently several times in opposition to so-called “religious freedom” legislation increasingly being debated in state legislatures across the country.
Last week, Cook took to Twitter to announce that Apple is “deeply disappointed” in Indiana’s anti-gay “religious freedom” law and to warn Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson to veto a similar law.
On Sunday, the Washington Post published an op-ed written by Cook, “Pro-discrimination ‘religious freedom’ laws are dangerous.”
“There’s something very dangerous happening in states across the country,” Cook begins. “A wave of legislation, introduced in more than two dozen states, would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors.”
He echoed the sentiment he shared in his tweet, and he warned “there are nearly 100 bills designed to enshrine discrimination in state law” currently active in state legislatures.
“These bills rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear,” the 54-year old Alabama native shared. “They go against the very principles our nation was founded on, and they have the potential to undo decades of progress toward greater equality.”
I have great reverence for religious freedom. As a child, I was baptized in a Baptist church, and faith has always been an important part of my life. I was never taught, nor do I believe, that religion should be used as an excuse to discriminate.
I remember what it was like to grow up in the South in the 1960s and 1970s. Discrimination isn’t something that’s easy to oppose. It doesn’t always stare you in the face. It moves in the shadows. And sometimes it shrouds itself within the very laws meant to protect us.
Also Sunday, embattled Indiana Governor Mike Pence granted ABC News’Â George Stephanopoulos an interview, but it did not go well. Pence eight times refused to answer simple, basic questions about his state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and grossly mischaracterized its intent and what it can actually do.
WATCH – Mike Pence Doubles Down On Anti-Gay Law: ‘We’re Not Going To Change This’ (Video)
That led HRC to release an embarrassing video edit of his comments.
Finally, also on Sunday, a damning image appeared of Gov. Pence signing of the bill into law, revealing at least three professional anti-gay lobbyists surrounding the governor.
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Image by The Climate Group via Flickr and a CC license
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