Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Paypal’s hypocrisy is on full display this week after the company made a big show out of abandoning plans to open a new global operations center in North Carolina after the legislature passed a bill they claim discriminates against the LGBT community – but the company had no reservations about opening an office in Malaysia where homosexuals are routinely punished.
The dustup with Paypal began on March 23 when North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory signed a piece of common sense legislation that requires transgender people to use the bathrooms that correspond with the sex listed on their birth certificates. It also nullifies local ordinances around the state that expanded protection for the LGBT community.
The bill, known as the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act or “the Charlotte bathroom bill”, creates a statewide definition of classes of people protected against discrimination due to race, religion, color, national origin, age, handicap or biological sex as designated on a person’s birth certificate. Sexual orientation was never protected under state law, nor is it now.
The ink was still wet on the bill when the typical LGBT-activist inspired pogroms began with companies threatening to pull their businesses out of the state. Braeburn Pharmaceuticals of New Jersey said it was reconsidering plans to build a new $20 million research and manufacturing site in the state which would have employed 50 people. Lionsgate and the A&# Network also said they would no longer film in North Carolina. The NBA also threatened to remove its All Star Game from the state.
Now it was PayPal’s turn to jump on the bandwagon. Dan Schulman, the president and CEO of PayPal, issued a statement in which he pontificated: “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. This decision reflects PayPal’s deepest values and our strong belief that every person has the right to be treated equally, and with dignity and respect. These principles of fairness, inclusion, and equality are at the heart of everything we seek to achieve and stand for as a company. And they compel us to take action to oppose discrimination.”
North Carolina Lt. Gov.
Dan Forest
If he thought the state would grovel for forgiveness, he was sorely mistaken. North Carolina Lt. Governor, Dan Forest, not only refused to be muscled, but issued a statement in which he correctly stood up for the innocent women and children who are endangered by these misguided “bathroom” policies.
“If our action in keeping men out of women’s bathrooms and showers protected the life of just one child or one woman from being molested or assaulted, then it was worth it,” Forest said in a statement. “North Carolina will never put a price tag on the value of our children. They are precious and priceless. If a corporation wanting to do business in North Carolina does not see the worth of our children in the same light, then I wish them well as they do business somewhere else.”
Forest should be applauded for calling the company’s bluff, which also served the public interest by allowing time for the press to reveal the blatant hypocrisy of PayPal’s announcement.
As Peter Hasson reports for the Daily Caller, “PayPal’s values didn’t keep the company from opening and maintaining a global operations center in Malaysia, where homosexual acts are punishable by public lashings and jail sentences up to 20 years.”
Austin Ruse, writing for Breitbart, was also quick to pile on.
“While PayPal is offended by the North Carolina law, PayPall is apparently fine allowing its services to be used in countries where homosexuals really are persecuted, some of them unto death,” Ruse writes. “According to a screenshot taken of the PayPal website and circulated by North Carolina Values Coalition, PayPal does business in Nigeria, Zambia, Yemen, Somalia, and other countries where those who act out same-sex sexual activity are severely punished, including the death penalty, and some that do not even allow public advocacy.”
PayPal isn’t the only corporate hypocrite when it comes to the homosexual agenda, Ruse reports, and cites tech giant Apple for attacking states that have religious freedom laws that protect individuals and businesses from participating in weddings they deem morally objectionable.
However, “Apple has numerous Apple Shops and Apple Premium Resellers in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia – one of ten countries in which gays are regularly executed.”
The moral of this story is that the faithful need not be pushed around by LGBT bullies or their consorts in corporate America. We can only thank God for the strong leadership of North Carolina for teaching us this valuable lesson.
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