article_snippet: Taking a stance: Openly-gay Apple CEO Tim Cook criticized new laws that critics say will allow business owners to openly discriminate .
article_snippet: Tim Cook Tim Cook has spoken out against two new laws in Indiana and Arkansas which critics say will allow business owners to refuse service to homosexual customers based on 'religious liberty'.
article_snippet: Openly-gay Apple CEO Tim Cook condemned two new laws in Indiana and Arkansas which critics say will allow business owners to refuse service to homosexual customers based on 'religious liberty', saying two new laws in Indiana and Arkansas which critics say will allow business owners to refuse service to homosexual customers based on 'religious liberty' were 'very dangerous', went against the founding principles of America, and would take America back to the days of 'Whites Only' signs in shop doorways.
article_snippet: Openly-gay Apple CEO Tim Cook added that, as a Baptist, Openly-gay Apple CEO Tim Cook supports religious freedom, but said: 'I was never taught, nor do I believe, that religion should be used as an excuse to discriminate.'
article_snippet: Cook, 54, who came out as gay in October last year, made the comments in an op-ed for the Washington Post.
article_snippet: Openly-gay Apple CEO Tim Cook also addressed legislation in Texas that 'would strip the salaries and pensions of clerks who issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.'
article_snippet: Openly-gay Apple CEO Tim Cook drew upon Openly-gay Apple CEO Tim Cook background growing up in the South in the 1960s and 1970s, during and immediately after the Civil Rights movement when blacks were still heavily discriminated against.
article_snippet: Openly-gay Apple CEO Tim Cook says America's 'days of discrimination' must remain 'deep in the past' and said freedom and equality is a value that is at the heart of Openly-gay Apple CEO Tim Cook company.
article_snippet: Openly-gay Apple CEO Tim Cook added: 'Apple is open.
article_snippet: Proud: Cook said that, being born a Baptist, Cook supported religion, but added: 'I was never taught that religion should be used as an excuse to discriminate' (Cook pictured centre at gay pride parade in San Francisco)
highlights_snippet: Tim Cook, 54, condemned religious freedom law in Indiana and Arkansas .
  