News Release
For Immediate Release: May 2, 2016
Contact: Diane Gramley 1.814.271.9078 or 1.814.437.5355
Philadelphia Seeks to Bring Anti-Gay Company into City
(Harrisburg) — Today the American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), a statewide advocacy group, sent an email to Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and the Director of Philadelphia’s Department of Commerce, Harold Epps, seeking clarification on their efforts to bring PayPal into the city.
“It came to light in recent weeks that Philadelphia has reached out to PayPal and other companies in North Carolina and Mississippi after those states passed common sense laws to protect, in the case of North Carolina, women and young girls in the women’s restroom and, in the case of Mississippi, to protect the religious freedom of business owners. It is quite evident that Mayor Jim Kenney and the ones leading the effort to get PayPal, in particular, to move operations to Philadelphia are ignoring the fact that PayPal operates in countries where engaging in homosexual acts is punishable by death,” noted Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA.
The email says in part:
According to City Councilman Mark Squilla, the City of Philadelphia Commerce Department has reached out to PayPal and other LGBT-friendly businesses asking them to consider a move to the City. This, of course, is in response to North Carolina’s law saying biological men must use the men’s restroom and biological women must use the women’s restroom. It should immediately be noted here that the new law does not impact PayPal’s corporate policies, nor the corporate policies of any other business in North Carolina. If they want to allow men in women’s restrooms, they are free to continue that policy! Are Philadelphia’s laws as business friendly as North Carolina’s?
In essence, the City of Philadelphia is reaching out to PayPal – a company that does business in countries with poor human rights records including the death penalty for those who identify as homosexual! PayPal does business in countries like Yemen, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Somalia, where laws are much more draconian than requiring men to use the men’s room or pay a fine. It is quite evident that PayPal operates under two different policies — one for the US and the other for international operations. Does this bother those in Philadelphia leading the effort to bring these anti-gay companies to the city?
Mayor Kenney, you have joined Mayors Against Discrimination. How can you justify your membership in that group while you seek to partner with companies that do business in countries that call for the death penalty for homosexuals? There seems to be some duplicity.
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end email
“We also noted in our email the fact that no one is born gay, bisexual or transgender and that the city is seeking to cater to 2.7% of the population in Pennsylvania. PayPal’s punishment for North Carolina by not going through with its planned expansion to add 400 jobs in Charlotte should be overshadowed by the fact they ignore human rights violations of countries they gladly do business with. Will Philadelphia also ignore PayPal’s foreign partners’ draconian laws as they seek to partner with the online payment platform? If Philly does ignore PayPal’s international partners, what message will that send homosexuals the city is trying to appease?” questioned Gramley.
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