Indianapolis mayor orders city employees to ignore new religious-freedom law

Indianapolis includes sexual orientation in its civil rights protections. The state of Indiana does not. Some Indianapolis city council members feared that the new state law would override the local provision, but Ballard has called on any businesses that receive money from the city to ignore the state law in favor of the city statute. He has also called on Indiana’s General Assembly to add sexual orientation to the state’s civil rights law.

A number of businesses, including Salesforce and Yelp, have come out against the law. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said he had canceled programs requiring his customers or employees to travel to Indiana. Connecticut’s governor, Democrat Dan Malloy, implemented a measure barring state employees from travelling to Indiana on March 30 in response to the passage of the law.

And the prominent sports figures Charles Barkley and Keith Olbermann have called for the NCAA Men’s Division 1 Basketball Tournament Final Four, being played in Indianapolis starting Saturday, to be moved to a different city in light of the law.