PayPal Makes North Carolina Pay For Anti-Gay Law By Canceling Charlotte Expansion

The free market is punishing North Carolina for passing a law to discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

PayPal abruptly announced on Tuesday that as a result of the “religious liberty” law passed in North Carolina, it would not be moving forward with the plans to open a new global operations center in Charlotte, which would have employed over 400 people.

In a statement, Dan Schulman, President and CEO of PayPal, explained, “Two weeks ago, PayPal announced plans to open a new global operations center in Charlotte and employ over 400 people in skilled jobs. In the short time since then, legislation has been abruptly enacted by the State of North Carolina that invalidates protections of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens and denies these members of our community equal rights under the law.

The new law perpetuates discrimination and it violates the values and principles that are at the core of PayPal’s mission and culture. As a result, PayPal will not move forward with our planned expansion into Charlotte.”

To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.

Regretting that they wouldn’t get to be a part of the Charlotte community, Schulman said, “While we will seek an alternative location for our operations center, we remain committed to working with the LGBT community in North Carolina to overturn this discriminatory legislation, alongside all those who are committed to equality.”

PayPal is reacting to the law North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory (R) signed that bars transgender people from using bathrooms that match the gender they were born with and prohibits cities from passing anti-discrimination ordinance that protect gay and transgender people.

Basically, Charolotte had passed an anti-discrimination ordinance and the Republicans didn’t like that, so they concern trolled under the guise of “religious liberty” with their bathroom boogeyman about rape (they don’t care about rape when it’s actually a problem, though) in order to pass a law to invalidate the Charlotte ordinance. Apparently religious liberty is a value but personal liberty is not.

Guess who else is concerned about being seen to rub shoulders with “religious liberty” laws? Oh, just a few biggies based in North Carolina like Wells Fargo, the National Basketball Association and American Airlines.

Bigotry and hatred are bad for business, as is employing the law in an attempt to steal personal liberty and constitutional protections from citizens.

Go ahead, Republicans, have your “religious liberty”, which is not so code for legal prejudice against certain citizens for their. The rest of the country will take the jobs and the tax base.

Sarah Jones

Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.

Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Connect with Sarah on Post,  Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.