The “small government” Republicans in the state legislature have passed an omnibus “hate bill” in response to a Charlotte ordinance protecting LGBT citizens from discrimination that produced whole host of horrors in addition to rolling back those protections:
But the legislation introduced and passed into law by the General Assembly yesterday didn’t simply roll back that ordinance. It implemented a detailed state-wide regulation of public restrooms, and limited a person’s use of those restrooms to only those restrooms that correspond with one’s “biological sex,” defined in the new state law as the sex identified on one’s birth certificate. (So yes, by law in NC now, transgender porn star Buck Angel (look him up) will have to use the women’s room…isn’t that precisely what these lawmakers are actually wanting to prevent?).
But the legislation didn’t stop there. It also expressly pre-empted all municipal and county ordinances or policies broader than the official state anti-discrimination statute, which does not include sexual orientation or gender identity among the list of prohibited bases of discrimination. So that effectively wipes out local LGBT anti-discrimination protections in numerous NC cities (and, ironically, wipes out the protection of discrimination based on “veterans status” in Greensboro and Orange County (Chapel Hill)).
But wait, there’s more. The legislation also expressly states that there can be no statutory or common law private right of action to enforce the state’s anti-discrimination statutes in the state courts. So if a NC resident is the victim of racial discrimination in housing or employment, for example, that person is now entirely barred from going to state court to get an injunction, or to get damages of any kind. The new law completely defangs the state’s anti-discrimination statute, rendering it entirely unenforceable by the citizens of the state.
But wait, there’s more! The legislation also prohibits municipalities and counties from passing a higher minimum wage than the State’s. Not that any municipality or county had done that…but in case any of them were thinking about it, that’s now prohibited, too.
The GOP is, absolutely, the party of discrimination and hate. They don’t even try to hide it anymore.
As an NC resident, I am of course appalled. The fact that the courts will eventually strike this shit down is cold comfort. It’s not the first power grab the NC legislature has tried–they tried to take over the Charlotte airport a while back–but, Jesus, party of small government over-riding cities’ ability to pass their own goddamn ordinances? And the bathroom thing is just idiotic. I have a trans high school classmate who was a girl then and is a man now. I don’t think he’s had the surgery (F to M surgery is very difficult and usually has unsatisfying results), but he has a beard and everything–so how do you think people in a women’s restroom would react if he walked in because of his “biological identity”?
Honestly, the Democratic Party in NC is not blameless here. When I moved here, they had become complacent (read: shiftless and corrupt), and lots of people were pissed off at them. But God damn, this is what we get to replace them? I’m really hoping for heavy “throw the bastards out” sentiment here come November. Even the governor is in a very tough race. (In fairness to the governor, who is an idiot but is a pro-business non-Tea Party idiot, he has vetoed bills similar to this before, and the lawmakers have been able to overturn every single one.)
Slightly less than Georgia.