I have three children, all in single-digit ages.
When we frequent an establishment, we fill that space with a bombastic chaos that a troupe of howler monkeys could not hope to rival. Things get thrown, messes get made, slapfights ensue, shouting reaches deafening levels, everywhere we go.
Everywhere.
And yet, no one ever questions my right to bring this cacophonous pack of hairless monkeys with me wherever I go. Because they know that I love my children and it's only natural for a father to go places with his kids. Sure they're noisy and they cause a disturbance and more than once I've had to clean ketchup off of a restaurant ceiling, but it's never crossed my mind that someone would simply not allow me entrance into their place of business because of them.
But if I were gay, well apparently that would be a whole different story.
In an alarmingly growing number of places, you can bring however many screeching tiny goblins you want into a place of business. You just can't bring in someone you love, if the two of you happen to be of the same gender.
For those of you still wondering, it is in fact still the year 2015.
New Orleans Governor Bobby Jindal recently issued an executive order essentially legalizing discrimination, towing the line of other states whose chief executives have thrown their constituencies into the dark ages in order to pander to a voting bloc. We of course saw this before, when Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed The Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law and was promptly blown up in the press. In all fairness, he probably wasn't expecting a reaction like this, seeing as 19 other states and the Federal government had enacted similar legislation and there hadn't been a backlash on this scale.
With the backlash that hit Indiana, it's kind of baffling that Jindal would follow suit.
Within days of the Indiana law's passage, those LGBT allies who wouldn't stand silent voiced their dissent with the deadliest tool in the arsenal: they withheld travel. The CEO of Salesforce issued a company-wide ban on business travel to the state. The mayors of Seattle and San Francisco followed suit, issuing bans on business travel to Indiana for city employees. As did the governors of Washington and Connecticut.
For someone who considers himself an ally, it was really cool to see. These weren't your traditional outlets of progressive thought, these were large corporations and municipal governments, standing up for the gay community by hitting the Hoosier state right in the wallet.
Someone in Louisiana, for whatever reason, watched that all happen and thought it would be a good idea to try it there.
Spoiler alert: it wasn't. Already the New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau has chimed in, essentially calling the executive order invalid. It probably wouldn't have been very professional of them to issue a statement saying, "What? No, come on. Shut up," but you kind of feel like they wanted to. New Orleans Tourism and Marketing also responded, basically saying Jindal can sign all the executive orders he wants, they're still going to promote NOLA to any and all comers.
It's actually an interesting change of stance. In Indiana, industry boycotted the best way they knew how, by closing the pipeline of lucrative business travel. In Louisiana, where tourism brought in $10.2 billion in 2013, tourism stakeholders have enough sway to issue an official eye roll.
But one thing is clear. The buying power of travel, the inescapable economic pull of tourism, proved itself in Indiana as legislators are still working to amend and at least partially nullify the bill. Jindal, I hope whatever votes you get out of this stunt were worth it. Your tourism stakeholders are certainly not impressed.
For the latest travel news, updates and deals, subscribe to the daily TravelPulse newsletter.
Topics From This Article to Explore
