Friday, March 27, 2015

GenCon and The Religious Freedom Restoration Act

GenCon has received quite a bit of attention this week over its stance on the recently signed Indiana Religious Freedom Act, essentially telling Gov. Mike Pence that it would look for a new location if he signed the act, which he proceeded to do, joining 19 other states, including Illinois, with similar laws. Of course, given GenCon's that GenCon's contract with the convention center there runs until 2020, I doubt we will see them leave early as breaking such a contract generally comes with heavy financial penalties.

While I am not a big fan of laws like this, it is the business' choice to opt to not to serve customers based on religious beliefs and the law supports their decision to do so. Most stores are in business to make money and turning away a customer is generally not a good idea. The best thing that you as a customer can do is boycott any business that opts to discriminate against customer based on religious reasons and tell them you are doing so. Of course, this has much more effect if you are currently a customer. Telling a business with which you have never done business that you will no longer do business with them will likely elicit a confused look and a shrug.

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