One important bit of recent religious liberty news which hasn’t gotten much attention is the pushback by Proctor & Gamble shareholders against anti-religious freedom activists seeking to eliminate corporate neutrality and enlist large firms in their culture war exploits. This is a promising development, and shows that large corporations abandoning their neutrality and enlisting in the battle against religious freedom is not inevitable.
When it was recently proposed that the “company should join Apple, PayPal, Disney, and others in the political fight against religious freedom laws in Mississippi and Tennessee and should take a stand against North Carolina’s transgender restroom policy,” 94% of shareholders rejected the idea. Such a rejection shows there is sanity in the corporate world, after all.
In recent years, large corporations have almost universally abandoned their cultural neutrality and sided against religious freedom laws at the state level, many times issuing threats to pull out of the state or not expand if such laws are not eliminated. State officials often capitulate, believing resistance is futile.
This development within Proctor & Gamble shows that the struggle is not in vain, however, and all citizens and government officials alike should take heart and understand that this is a fight worth having.
