North Caolina

Mayor Ed Lee said that residents in the city with a large gay and lesbian population “will not subsidize legally sanctioned discrimination.”

Apple, Google and Facebook are among a dozen big companies or their top executives objecting to a North Carolina law that bars municipalities from adopting anti-discrimination ordinances.

WASHINGTON – Religious freedom bills in more than a dozen state legislatures this year mark the latest effort by opponents of same-sex marriage to counter the growing public acceptance of marriage equality, and the momentum of federal court rulings striking down state gay marriage bans.