Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson announced today that he won't be signing the "religious freedom" bill passed by the state legislature, and it sure isn't because of his deep concern for the welfare of gay Arkansans. You can reduce it to two factors: first, he surely wanted to avoid the PR disaster and boycotts that Indiana is now suffering through, and second, Walmart. The Arkansas-based behemoth, the state's pride, joy, and largest private employer, released a statement condemning the bill, saying it "threatens to undermine the spirit of inclusion present throughout the state of Arkansas and does not reflect the values we proudly uphold."
You may not think of Walmart as a particularly progressive company, and they aren't. But in truth, they aren't a particularly conservative company either. Why does Walmart fight unions with all its might and pay its workers as little as it thinks it can get away with? It isn't because of some Randian philosophy, it's because they long ago decided that profit can be maximized by keeping prices and costs as low as possible, and they've proven themselves spectacularly good at achieving those goals. You might counter that there are companies like Costco that treat employees better and also make healthy profits, and you'd be right. But Walmart does what it does because of its perception of what's good for its bottom line.
That isn't to say that every business leader sees only dollars and cents in every decision, but personal feelings tend only to come into play when the lack of business risk allows it. Tim Cook of Apple may write an op-ed condemning the Indiana law because of what he personally believes, and because he knows that those beliefs are shared by most of his employees. But Indiana isn't a big part of Apple's long-term plans one way or another. Walmart, on the other hand, has a critical stake in Arkansas, and in 2015, that means they don't want the state to be viewed as intolerant.
We've now reached a point where companies even in very conservative areas realize that being gay-friendly is important to recruiting, not so much because they want to recruit gay employees, but because they want to recruit employees who find an inclusive work environment attractive. And when you're in a state like Indiana or Arkansas, you have to work extra hard to be able to recruit the best people.
I'm not trying to insult those states, but the truth is that there aren't that many kids living in, say, California who dream of one day moving to Pine Bluff or Gary. If your company is headquartered in New York or Seattle or Miami, on the other hand, you don't have to worry as much about whether you're going to be able to convince people to move there, or whether you can keep talented local people from leaving. But that is something that a company like Walmart does worry about.
For every corporation like Hobby Lobby that has an ideology it will pursue even at the expense of profits, there are a hundred others that are happy to shift with changing times if doing so is good business. My guess is that Mike Pence not only didn't expect the firestorm of activism that would greet Indiana's religious freedom bill, he also didn't realize how quickly major corporations would come out against it. But it wasn't personal. It's just business.