After Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Pence passed a controversial religious freedom law, Salesforce.com announced that it would no longer send employees or customers to Indiana.
The law, similar to a law passed in Michigan and one proposed in Montana, prohibits a state or local government from "substantially burdening a person's right to the exercise of religion unless it is demonstrated that applying the burden to the person's exercise of religion is essential to further a compelling governmental interest and the least restrictive means of furthering the compelling governmental interest," according to the law. The bill also provides that a person who claims their right to practice religion has been substantially burdened can sue for an injunction or damages. Gov. Pence signed the law on March 26, according to the Indy Star.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff announced via Twitter that the company would cancel "all programs that require our customers/employees to travel to Indiana to face discrimination." The San Francisco-based cloud computing company acquired Indianapolis-based marketing software company ExactTarget in 2014 for $2.5 billion, according to the report.
"We are forced to dramatically reduce our investment in Indiana based on our employees' and customers' outrage over the Religious Freedom Bill," Mr. Benioff said in a tweet a day before the passage of the law.
A letter from a group of business leaders in the tech industry urged Gov. Pence to veto the law, including signatures from Clear Software founder and CEO Jon Gilman, Salesforce Marketing Cloud CEO Scott McCorkle, CloudOne CEO John McDonald, Salesvue founder and CEO Bill Johnson, LeadJen president Jenny Vance and Lesson.ly founder and CEO Max Yoder, according to the report. All the companies are based in Indianapolis.
"As leaders of technology companies, we not only disagree with this legislation on a personal level, but the RFRA will adversely impact our ability to recruit and retain the best and the brightest talent in the technology sector," the letter read. "Technology professionals are by their nature very progressive, and backward-looking legislation such as the RFRA will make the state of Indiana a less appealing place to live and work."