NASHVILLE, Tenn. - On May 18, the Republican-controlled Tennessee state legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill that would strip Nashville of its anti-bias rights protections for its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens, and ban any Tennessee city from enacting similar measures. The bill is now awaiting the Governor's signature. Perhaps even more shocking than this action is the lobbying that promoted it: a coalition of business and religious leaders.
The Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry, chaired by the car company Nissan, and whose members include AT&T, FedEx, Comcast, DuPont, Pfizer, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Caterpillar, KPMG, Whirlpool, Embraer, Alcoa and United HealthCare, actively supported the measure. Those companies don't simply sit on the chamber as members - they are on the board of directors. In essence, they are the Chamber.
The bill was sponsored by Republican state Rep. Glen Casada after a meeting at the headquarters of LifeWay, a Southern Baptist affiliated company, with local religious and business leaders. According to Nashville's The City Paper, the people Casada met with include: former Republican state Rep. David Fowler who currently runs the Christian anti-gay Family Action Council of Tennessee, Lee Beaman of the Beaman Automotive Group and Stan Hardaway, president of Hardaway Construction.
The Nashville measure these business people and religious groups opposed was a bill that added sexual orientation and gender identity to the Davidson County anti-discrimination laws. In essence it simply required that contractors working with the county provide anti-discrimination protections to LGBT employees. The ordinance was approved in early April by a vote of 21-5 and signed by the mayor.The business and religious groups teamed up to spin the Nashville anti-discrimination measure as somehow anti-business, adding "excessive government regulation." According to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the anti-bias protections were providing an "additional burden" which would hinder their business.
continue reading at:
http://www.peoplesworld.org/business-group-pushed-tennessee-to-pass-anti-gay-bill/^article also contains an awesome George Takei vid
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