Evangelist Franklin Graham called PayPal Holdings Inc. a "hypocrite" after the company announced earlier this week that they are scrapping their plans to build an operations center in Charlotte, North Carolina because the company opposes the state's new law limiting LGBT legal protections,
The Charlotte Observer reports.
North Carolina's new law, which was signed by Gov. Pat McCrory on March 23, bars transgender people from bathrooms and locker rooms that don't match the gender on their birth certificates. And since the bills signing, over 100 prominent CEO's, including PayPal, have announced their opposition.
But Graham, the head of two charity organizations — Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse — that uses PayPal as a payment method for donations, continued to call the company a hypocrite especially after U.S. Rep. Robert Pittenger noted that the payment processor conducts business "in 25 countries where homosexual behavior is illegal."
However, on Tuesday, PayPal Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman said that the company's move to Charlotte, which would have created 400 jobs, is no longer a possibility since the new LGBT law "perpetuates discrimination, and it violates the values and principles that are at the core of PayPal's mission and culture."