Update: No Gay No Way plans to fly its banner Tuesday, April 2.

As Amazon establishes a major operations hub in Nashville, an LGBTQ advocacy group is urging the company to take a more vocal stance against legislation proposed in Tennessee.

No Gay? No Way!, a national campaign, is focusing its advocacy on Nashville and Seattle. It has run ads in the Tennessean and plans to fly an airplane with a banner on April 2.

"It's all an attempt to ask Amazon to live up to its values and walk the walk and aggressively speak out against the slate of bills in front of the legislature in Tennessee," campaign manager Conor Gaughan said.

The No Gay? No Way! effort began about a year ago as Amazon searched for its second headquarters. The group was disappointed that Amazon, a company with so much political sway, was considering as finalists cities in states that lacked LGBTQ protections. Now that the company has committed to bringing 5,000 jobs to Nashville in the coming years, the campaign wants Amazon to become involved in fighting legislation they see as harmful to LGBTQ individuals.

"Obviously, it's exciting for the state, but it comes at a time of expansion of discriminatory legislation against LGBT citizens," Gaughan said. "We felt like silence was not an option right now."

Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce and other local LGBT advocacy groups are not affiliated with the No Gay? No Way! initiative, chamber officials said.

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Controversial legislation in Tennessee

In Tennessee, lawmakers have proposed bills that could allow adoption agencies to deny prospective parents based on their sexuality if it goes against the agency's moral convictions. Another bill adds new language to indecent exposure laws and was first introduced with references to transgender individuals, even though all adults are already included in current law. A "Natural Marriage Defense" bill, that recognizes only marriages between a male and a female, has also been filed.

Lawmakers proposing the adoption bills say their focus is religious freedom and a sponsor of the indecent exposure bill has said he is seeking to bring clarity to the law.

“Amazon has a long history of supporting equality and we’re opposed to laws that discriminate or encourage discrimination," Amazon spokeswoman said in a statement emailed Wednesday.

Amazon has publicly emphasized diversity and inclusion, both through its corporate policies and benefits and through executives' statements. According to the Washington Post, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has donated $2.5 million to support same-sex marriage in Washington state and received a national equality award from the Human Rights Campaign.

No Gay? No Way! organizers welcomed Amazon's statement, but said it fell short of needed action.

"A statement is nice, but actions speak louder than words," Gaughan said in an emailed statement after Amazon responded for comment. "If Amazon is serious about LGBT rights, they will financially support the Tennessee advocacy groups fighting these bills, and they will put their own social and political capital to good use. They have the power to make a difference, through their strong corporate relationships. There’s a huge difference between actual leadership and a statement."

AllianceBernstein, a New York firm moving its headquarters to Nashville, came out publicly against the legislation earlier this month in a written statement, but declined to comment further. While hundreds of companies, including Amazon, have joined the Tennessee Thrives campaign that opposed past bathroom bills affecting transgender individuals in 2016, few have been willing to comment separately about more recent bills.

In Seattle, the No Gay? No Way! campaign is using billboards to make its case and in Tennessee, it will run letters in publications and through digital ad campaigns. It may try to fly its airplane and banner next week.

As Amazon searched for its expansion sites last year, No Gay? No Way! urged the company to choose states that provide legal protections for LGBT individuals. Those states do not include Tennessee, which passed a law in 2011 overriding a Nashville ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation by companies contracting with the city.

Reach Jamie McGee at 615-259-8071 and on Twitter @JamieMcGee_.