Unofficial Business: Billionaire fights Ga. ‘religious liberty’ bill

How much uglier can things get over the state’s “religious liberty” legislation, which also been branded as “anti-gay”? And how did we get where a bunch of the nation’s biggest brands are telling us our state is on the verge of a major brand meltdown?

Marc Benioff, who resides just a few slots down from Donald Trump on the Forbes list of richest people in the U.S., is only the most outspoken of many leaders and businesses warning that the Georgia legislators are creating an economic, moral and image mess that will be difficult to scrape off.

The CEO of tech company Salesforce also happened to be the most outspoken business leader fighting “religious liberty” legislation in Indiana last year. Politicians there amended the law in the face of withering criticism and predictions of severe economic fallout.

Now, in Georgia, business leaders claim House Bill 757 — which awaits Gov. Nathan Deal's signature to become law — will open the doors to discrimination of LGBT employees and customers even as proponents say it embraces religious freedom.

Business bosses like Benioff have helped stoke the fire.

They are reacting to and feeding on changing expectations from employees and customers empowered to push bosses into action. Even as our relationships with employers grow more tenuous and short term, we expect more out of them. You might lay me off next year, but until then you better back social and moral causes I consider crucial. That’s leading CEOs to new stances.

“Our politicians have become so weak that people look to CEOs and the power they can bring” to cause change, Benioff told me when we recently chatted by phone.

I assume that for Salesforce and many other companies seeking young tech workers, coming out in opposition of LGBT discrimination is a relatively easy and inexpensive image booster.

Benioff said issues like these affect how the company is viewed by employees and customers and what they say about it online.

“If they feel like they are part of my company, and I’m not supporting them and don’t have their backs, they are going to go to another company,” he said.

His San Francisco-based company has nearly 20,000 employees, including several hundred in Atlanta.

When the Indiana situation had first unfolded, in a state where Salesforce had lots of employees, Benioff recalled that he was unaware of it. Until employees and customers asked him: “What are you going to do about this?”

His response: “What am I going to do about what?”

Initially hesitant to get involved, Benioff said he ultimately concluded that watching out for employees on important social issues they care about is part of his job. He sent out a tweet — “kind of out of an emotional reaction” — warning that Salesforce would have to cut back in Indiana if the law went through.

He emailed powerful friends who also were CEOs. Some followed him into the fray.

In Georgia, corporate biggies like Home Depot, UPS, Delta Air Lines and SunTrust have been urging legislators away from similar bills here. Some business leaders, like Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus have spoken out publicly on the issue.

Compare that to Benioff, who is a fire hose on the subject. He talked about the Georgia situation in a conference call with analysts, highlighted it in an interview on CNBC, tweeted about it repeatedly, urged other CEOs to speak out and even asked people to vote on Twitter about whether Salesforce should disinvest in Georgia if the legislation passed.

He told me his involvement in the Georgia legislation is largely something he does in his spare time, on his phone. “This is not my PR department. This is not some organized corporate initiative.”

But last week, Benioff sent his general counsel and legal team here, 2,500 miles away from headquarters, to push for a legal resolution. “We want to move on,” he said.

If the legislation becomes law, he said Salesforce would cancel company meetings in Georgia (it has a major event in May at the Georgia World Congress Center) and reduce hiring plans in the state. It may do what it did in Indiana, where it helped with relocation expenses for employees who no longer felt comfortable remaining in the state. But Benioff said it would be “almost impossible” for Salesforce to pull out of Georgia, where it has major customers.

Taking a stand in some places is easier than in others.

State Senator Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, who is a proponent of the Georgia legislation, pointed out that Salesforce does business in India and Singapore, where homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment.

McKoon, by the way, describes the corporate pushback as playing “the extortion card” and a way for LGBT groups to argue for making sexual orientation a legally protected class, which it currently isn’t under Georgia law.

Benioff said Salesforce is agitating against discrimination all over.

Alexander “Sasha” Volokh, an Emory professor who specializes in constitutional law, told me HB 757 would allow religious nonprofits such as churches to discriminate in a number of ways, such as selective hiring beyond just preachers — even of janitors or administrative assistants — because of their religious beliefs.

But outside of those religious entities, he said, the legislation “will not have a great impact on discrimination” in Georgia.

“The rhetoric on either side has been somewhat overblown,” he told me.

Let's face it: Like so much else about the political process, Georgia's "religious liberty" legislation is an exercise in fear mongering and lack of trust among people with different views. It's a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

Both supporters and critics have created an overheated environment that threatens to damage Georgia’s business image for nothing more than ghostly what-ifs.

It’s time for the legislation to go away.