PayPal has earned plaudits for its decision to call off plans to open a global operations center in North Carolina in response to a new state law seen by some as discriminatory toward the LGBT community. How much credit does the company actually deserve?
PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said the North Carolina law, which requires transgender individuals to use public restrooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificates, “violate the values and principles that are at the core of PayPal’s missions and culture.”
The tech firm’s move is the latest example of a large U.S. corporation taking public action in the name of tolerance and inclusion. But while these companies are eager to take a moral stand here at home, they often fail to apply a consistent standard abroad in countries where anti-LGBT discrimination is far more explicit.
PayPal, for example, has operations in several countries—Malaysia, Singapore and Turkey—that make Raleigh look like San Francisco.
Simply put: #LoveWins. pic.twitter.com/SQMGf4VjFw
— PayPal (@PayPal) June 26, 2015
In 2011, the company opened a global operations center in Malaysia, where homosexuality and other sexual behaviors “against the order of nature” are legally punishable by flogging and up to 20 years in prison. The prime minister recently compared the LGBT community to ISIS.
In 2010, PayPal established an international headquarters in Singapore, a country where sexual acts between two men are punishable by up to two years in prison. While the government has pledged to not “actively enforce” these laws, LGBT rights groups continue to cite them as a justification for discrimination.
The company also operates, and has hosted competitions, in Turkey, a country that has become increasingly hostile toward LGBT rights under the Islamist government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In 2015, Turkish police used tear gas, pepper spray, water cannon and rubber bullets to disperse a gay pride march in Istanbul.
PayPal recently announced plans to bring its services to Cuba, another country with a spotty record on LGBT rights. Proponents of the North Carolina law have seized on these examples and accused the firm of acting hypocritically. Perhaps both sides have a point.
PayPal’s actions are understandable. The company gets to present itself as an organization that “does the right thing.” Most people who get worked up about public restrooms in North Carolina are unlikely to call for similar boycotts over public executions in Saudi Arabia and discriminatory measures in (predominately Muslim) countries around the world. But if PayPal is going to make a big show of being (per its website) a “purpose driven company, whose beliefs are reflected in the way we do business every day,” why hold other countries to a different standard?
It’s not the first time the issue of corporate hypocrisy and moral convenience has been raised in the context of LGBT rights. When dozens of U.S. firms threatened to boycott Indiana over a controversial religious freedom law passed in 2015, critics were quick to point out that some of the offended firms, such as SalesForce, maintains operations in China, a country where human rights are routinely trampled upon, but where labor costs are eminently affordable.
