Santa Fe bans city employees’ travel to NC, Miss. after anti-LGBT laws passed

The mayor of Santa Fe said the city will ban all non-essential travel by city employees to North Carolina and Mississippi after the states passed anti-LGBT legislation in recent weeks.

A city spokesman says a ban for travel to Indiana passed last year is extended to the two new states.

Mayor Javier Gonzales announced the extended ban in a Facebook post Tuesday.

“Incredibly sad to see another state pass anti-LGBT legislation. Santa Fe will continue the policy of banning all non-essential travel to States that pass hateful legislation that promotes discrimination,” he wrote in the post.

Mississippi passed legislation signed by the governor in the past week that allows individuals and institutions to deny services to the LGBT community on a religious basis.

North Carolina also in recent weeks passed a law that changed anti-discrimination laws based on people’s sexual orientation and requiring transgender people to use bathrooms of the gender listed on their birth certificates.

Multiple businesses and film companies have said since that they will not do business in either state.

Similar measures passed by the Georgia legislature were vetoed by the state’s governor, and Wednesday, Pennsylvania’s governor said he would issue an executive order banning discrimination by state contractors against LGBT employees.

Santa Fe also last year passed an ordinance requiring single-stall bathrooms to be gender-neutral.

It is unclear how often Santa Fe city employees travel to either North Carolina or Mississippi, but a message was left with a city spokesman.