Missouri's measure on protecting a business that denies services for same-sex weddings has been slammed by NFL draftee Michael Sam. Sam believes that it creates differences and rids people of respect.
According to Salon, Sam talked to a crowd in the Capitol Rotunda saying that the bill does not reflect the Missouri he knows. He also said that the bill is backward, bigoted and bad for the state of Missouri.
After the assembly, some of the protesters persuaded the members of the House panel to vote against the legislation. Spring field Republican Representative Elijah Haahr said he is delaying the vote until next week in order to give its members more time to evaluate the said legislation. Haahr admitted that the committee members have faced pressure from supporters of both sides, as per ABC News.
As reported by Fox 2 Now, the proposal would amend the state constitution to ban government penalties against businesses that deny services of expressional or artistic creation for same-sex couples wedding on religious grounds .
Critics of the bill strongly believe that the new legislation will invite people to discriminate the LGBT community. Critics added that these types of anti-LGBT laws will make it harder for the state to recruit talents.
Many businesses have come out in protest to these types of legislations. Dan Schulman, the CEO of PayPal, said his company is ending its plan of hiring 400 people on their new operations center in Charlotte after North Carolina required transgender people to use bathrooms in accordance to their sex orientation at birth. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is also against this. Silver is yet to decide whether to move the All- Star game out of Charlotte for next year or not.
On the other hand, supporters of the bill said that the economic concerns were just blown out of proportion. Republican Senator Bob Onder of St. Louis, who supports the bill, said it would be wrong to punish businesses that cite religion as a justification for denying service to people.
