The City and County of Honolulu is placing a moratorium on all nonessential, publicly funded travel by city employees to North Carolina and Mississippi in protest of laws those states recently enacted that relate to the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender people.

“This moratorium sends a clear message to states where discrimination against people in the LGBT community, as well as any discrimination based on race, religion, color, national origin, age, biological sex, or handicap is tolerated,” Mayor Kirk Caldwell said in a news release.

The New York Times reports that the Mississippi law allows people with religious objections to deny services to gay couples.

The North Carolina law bans “anti-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation” and requires “transgender people in government buildings and public schools to use bathrooms that match the gender on their birth certificates,” the Times said.