TORONTO — Apple Inc.'s chief executive, Tim Cook, said the United States still has a long way to go in the fight for gay rights.
The country hasn't achieved equality, despite a landmark Supreme Court ruling giving gays and lesbians the right to marry nationwide, he said Saturday night in a speech to the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C.
"Thirty-one states, more than half the stars on our American flag, have no laws to protect gay and transgendered people from discrimination," Cook said. "Discrimination doesn't simply fade. It has to be pushed back, challenged, overcome, and then kept at bay."
Since writing about being gay in an essay in Bloomberg Businessweek last year, Cook has come out against state laws that allow small businesses to refuse service to gays and lesbians on religious grounds. He pledged Apple would be at the forefront of the fight for equal rights.