(LifeSiteNews) — North Carolina’s GOP-led legislature voted today to repeal the HB2 law, after agreeing to a deal with Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to strip away its language requiring people to use only public bathrooms that match their biological sex.
“Transgender” and “gender-non-conforming” activists are crusading nationwide to use restrooms and locker rooms that match their subjective “gender identity,” even if that would allow biological men with male genitalia intact to occupy private spaces once used exclusively by women and girls.
The revised North Carolina law retains two provisions opposed by “transgender” and “gay” activists: “one that leaves all matters related to bathroom regulation to the state, and another that prevents local governments from enacting certain LGBT protections until the end of 2020,” Business Insider reports.
The compromise legislation passed 32-16 in the state Senate and 70-48 in the state House, and is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Cooper—just hours ahead of a NCAA (National College Athletic Association)-imposed “ultimatum” that would have prevented the state from hosting championship college sports events like March Madness over the next five years.
KTLA-5 reported, “The 2017 NBA All-Star Game, which was held in February, was moved from Charlotte to New Orleans. The NCAA relocated several college athletic championship events for the 2016-17 season over the law and implied four more years of tournaments are at stake if HB2 stands.”
LGBTQ outrage, socialcons disappointed
Social conservatives and LGBTQ activists alike opposed the quasi-repeal effort.
Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the NC Values Coalition, the main state group defending HB2, chastised the “bullying and intimidation tactics” of groups like the NCAA, the NBA (National Basketball Association) and “billion dollar corporations who care more about their political, hypocritical agendas than the well-being and dignity of the people in our great state.”
In a statement, Fitzgerald chided the NCAA and business community’s “full-court press” against HB2 and said, “Today, the leaders of our State have let the people of North Carolina down…No basketball game, corporation, or entertainment event is worth even one little girl losing her privacy and dignity to a boy in the locker room, or being harmed or frightened in a bathroom.”
She said the repeal vote “maintains separate facilities for men and women and leaves regulation of multi-occupancy facilities to the state.” However, it leaves North Carolina “without a statewide public policy on privacy and safety in bathrooms, locker rooms and showers and simply kicks this debate three years down the road.”
Meanwhile, the nation’s largest pro-LGBTQ lobby, Human Rights Campaign, blazoned its website with the headline, in large font: “SHAMEFUL: NC Lawmakers and Governor Cooper Sell Out LGBTQ Community With Discriminatory HB2 ‘Repeal.’”
“The so-called “deal” was disgracefully rammed through the legislature today following secret backroom negotiations on Wednesday. News of the fake repeal was met with a huge national outcry from major civil rights organizations including the HRC, Equality North Carolina, the National Center for Transgender Equality, Lambda Legal, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Center for Lesbian Rights,” and other organizations, HRC said.
